Self-editing for authors

[TheLobster]

My pet-peeve is off of. As in "he jumped off of the bed" the 'of' is unnecessary. It's just "he jumped off the bed". You never need the of.

Isn't that dialectical? Americans usually include the "of", Brits and the rest of their colonies don't.

 

[AgentDoiron]

Isn't that dialectical? Americans usually include the "of", Brits and the rest of their colonies don't.

Is the use of irregardless dialectical or an error? Similarly, is the use of literally when you mean figuratively an error?
Personally, I see all three as errors, but it isn't like I'm marking essays. It bugs me because it pulls me out of a story, leaving me focused on word choices instead of the scene the author is trying to convey.

 

[HordHolm]

"Jump off of" can be regarded as correct, actually: "Jump off" is the phrasal verb, followed by the preposition "of" indicating the location of the action. Of course, it could be argued that the phrasal verb already contains a preposition. But then, we could then point to other phrasal verbs which are then followed by a preposition, viz. "Look something up in a dictionary", or "Look up to someone", etc, where the second preposition (the one which is not a constituent of the phrasal verb) indicates the location of the action. My wife has also just pointed out that to say someone "jumps out of bed" is perfectly usual British English, and only uses a different phrasal verb.

It is, in fact, another example of the Americans using a more correct form of English (or at the least, an older form). We can see this with forms such as 'got - gotten', which is regarded as a mistake in modern British English, despite the fact that British English happily uses 'forgotten' as the past participle.

OTOH, I understand why the 'of' got dropped - there is the issue of the smoothness of pronunciation. Nevertheless, from a grammatical standpoint the US English version is correct.

 

[LargoKitt]

Something bought to mind by the omission @StillStunned made in his post upthread is the over-reliance on spelling and grammar checkers in Word. Most people write in Word, and TBH there are many things I dislike about it (my main 'steam-out-of-the-ears' issue is its habit of resetting to US English no matter how many times I tell it I want British English as default). Anyway... Word will highlight spelling and grammar errors, but will often not notice an omission/incorrect spelling, because what it is reading is grammatically correct/correct spelling, even if it is completely the opposite of what is intended. It is easy to skim a document looking for those red and blue wavy lines, but if you restrict your editing to that, be prepared to miss some massive errors.

To catch spelling errors reliably, read your text backward. You can skim pretty fast. Of course, most built in spell-checkers put a line under the misspelled word.

 

[StillStunned]

(my main 'steam-out-of-the-ears' issue is its habit of resetting to US English no matter how many times I tell it I want British English as default).

Try switching off the "Detect language automatically" option.

 

[HordHolm]

Try switching off the "Detect language automatically" option.

Tried that - it seems determined to forget I've done it.

 

[StillStunned]

Tried that - it seems determined to forget I've done it.

Frustrating. Do you have "Current document" selected, and then clicked "Set As Default"?

 

[HordHolm]

Frustrating. Do you have "Current document" selected, and then clicked "Set As Default"?

Yes. I usually remember to reset it every time I open a document, but on the odd occasion I forget (usually when I'm working on a paper I'm correcting for somebody) I get some real facepalm moments.

 

[LargoKitt]

Tried that - it seems determined to forget I've done it.

May help: Make sure your 'Siri' or other built-in 'helper' is set to British English.

 

[syn4321]

I think my main personal tip/approach is to pass through a story editing it at least a few more times top to bottom AFTER thinking it is done. You will probably continue to find ways to improve it. LOTS of editing passes. Constantly think about what you might throw out and not just what to add. Each pass should be at least a day apart. I probably edit every story at least a dozen times beginning to end before publishing.