In the right place and in the right hands, a flash of humor can be a powerful tool in our writing.
Understatement is effective, and we're not looking for belly laughs. It's important for editors to serve as a skeptical audience, lest a writer's wit seem witty mostly to the writer. But here are a few recent examples where an amusing incongruity made a sharp point. And if readers smiled, so much the better.
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National, 11/29:
Despite Powerball Odds, A Mad Rush to the Registers
NEW ORLEANS - All across this recession-weary country on Wednesday, Americans of every rank and station lined up at convenience stores and delis, placed their hard-earned dollars on countertops and took part in a venerated national tradition: trying to get really rich without doing anything. …
Most of the buyers interviewed on Wednesday ackn owledged that their chances were not especially good.
A standard practice in news media coverage is to compare lottery odds unfavorably with odds of dying in peculiar ways (shark attack, lightning), but even that morbid exercise does not do justice to the long shot. The odds of picking the winning numbers in Wednesday's drawing were longer than the odds of picking an American man completely at random and having him happen to be Alan Alda.
Campbell Robertson brought wit and some journalistic self-awareness to the predictable story about lottery mania. And his “Alan Alda†reference was perfect in its randomness, much more effective than the predictable “George Clooney†illustration in the source he linked to.
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Sports, 11/29:
Firing a Coach, at a Price, With Little Evidence the Move Pays Off
For an especially lucrative occupation, one might consider becoming a fired college football coach.
We should all be so lucky, as Jeré Longman's arch lead and well-reported story made clear.
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Business, 10/22:
Fresh Windows, but Where's the Start Button?
It took Mr. McCarthy several minutes just to figure out how to compose an e-mail message in Windows 8, which has a stripped-down look and on-screen buttons that at times resemble the runic assembly instructions for Ikea furniture.
A truly apt, if idiosyncratic, allusion in Nick Wingfield's story, and “runic†was the perfect word on many levels.
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Number Trouble
W e're still struggling to keep those subjects and verbs in accord. In many cases, sharper and less convoluted sentences would keep us on track. And copy editors, your writers are counting on you to save them!
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On clear days, the white peaks of Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain after Everest and K2, floats over the hilltop city like an ethereal fortress.
The intervening nouns seem to have thrown us off track. Make it “peaks … float.â€
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He and his writers broke news, sent shrapnel into many subject areas with provocative, opinionated copy and was part of the notorious pilfered iPhone 4 story that had law enforcement officials breaking down doors on Apple's behalf.
We lost the agreement thread before reaching the final element in the compound predicate. Make it “he and his writers … were part.â€
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Republicans have strenuously oppose d any increase in capital gains rates, and the notion that low rates on capital gains promotes economic growth is an article of faith for many conservatives, even though the empirical evidence is inconclusive.
Make it “low rates … promote†or “having low rates promotes.â€
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In a Word
This week's grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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Ammar, whom Mr. Boal has said is a composite, looks as if he has been beaten.
Make it “who,†the subject of “is.â€
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Sitting for an interview with Ami, a Jewish magazine, Mr. Hynes gave the side of his hand to “some absolute clown at The Daily News†who had written editorials criticizing his inaction on the Hasids.
The Times's stylebook calls for “Hasidim†as the plural.
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While other rookies may be hitting the p roverbial wall, he said he feels as though his season has barely begun.
Make it “felt as though he season had barely begun†(sequence of tenses). Also, let's be wary of “proverbial,†which appeared five times in the last seven days. It is often the warning sign of a cliché.
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But it is clear that for Mr. Obama, giving up on Ms. Rice's appointment was far different than accepting the resignation of David H. Petraeus, his C.I.A. director, or firing Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his commander in Afghanistan.
Unless what follows is a full clause, make it “different from.â€
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After six years in business, her clothes are sold in nearly 100 stores, she has designed a licensed collection of eyewear, and this week, she introduced a fragrance of her own, a limited-edition scent that is a collaboration with Barneys New York.
Dangler. Her clothes have not been in business for six years. Rephrase.
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As a boy, heart problems kept him from attending school regularly, though he became an avid reader with a particular passion for astronomy.
Another dangler. Rephrase.
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That is between 34 to 48 times what Bergman was paid for sharing top billing with Humphrey Bogart.
Make it “between 34 and 48.â€
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No doubt, he was one of the few mechanical engineers who not only was aware of Faulkner's immortal line - “The past is never dead. It's not even past†- but also understood what it meant.
Recorded announcement: “who†refers to the plural “engineers†in this construction, and so requires a plural verb in the relative clause.
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The original musical became a word-of-mouth sensation in 1974 for the nudity and sexual frankness on stage at the Village Gate, where it ran for two-and-a-half years before movi ng from Greenwich Village to Broadway's Morosco Theater in June 1976.
No hyphens needed in this phrase.
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Such frustrations are typical in Venezuela, for rich and poor alike, and yet President Hugo Chávez has managed to stay in office for nearly 14 years, winning over a significant majority of the public with his outsize personality, his free-spending of state resources and his ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better.
Here, too, the hyphen is unnecessary. It would only be needed if the phrase were a modifier, e.g. “his free-spending policies.â€
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But his name did not appear on the State Department's list of most wanted militants, and his role and stature inside Al Qaeda was not clear.
“Were,†not “was.â€
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska - In a conversation with homicide investigators befo re his suicide in jail this week, Israel Keyes said he had lived much of his life thinking that people only pretended to be nice.
Anchorage stands alone in datelines, according to the stylebook. (This was fixed for later editions and Web.)
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But it marks a new phase of American engagement in a bitter conflict that has claimed at least 40,000 lives, threatened to destabilize the broader Middle East and defied all outside attempts to end it.
As the stylebook cautions, “Resist the journalese use of mark to mean signify and, even more, to mean is or are.â€
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In Paris 29 years later, she sung the part in her farewell opera appearance.
Make it “sang.â€
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The State Department has no policy that forbids former diplomats from lobbying on behalf of nations where they served or returning to them them for profit, beyond the one applying to federal employees as a whole, wh ich prohibits senior officials from contacting agencies where they once worked for one year and bans all federal employees for life from advising on the same matters.
Aside from the fact that this sentence is overstuffed, the correct phrasing is “forbids … to lobby,†not “forbids … from lobbying.â€
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But the speed with which the court moved also raised the possibility of a split decision, one that would provide federal benefits to same-sex couples married in states that allow such unions but would permit other states to forbid gay and lesbian couples from marrying.
Ditto. Make it “forbid … to marry.â€
