My editing pet peeve - what's yours?

Idle threat. You love me too much for that. ;D

 

"is now" or "is currently" drives me insane. A couple of our writers do it. Just about everyone at AP does it.

"is" means "now" damnit!

 

The use of "dilemma" as a synonym for "problem" or "quandary."

Dilemma is specifically a choice between two unattractive alternatives.

Thus, Peyton Manning goes not face a dilemma on 3rd-and-3 when tying to decide whether to give the ball to Joseph Addai or throw a quick slant to Reggie Wayne.

And finally, there must be a writer who can spell supersede correctly. I just haven't met him or her yet.

 

Dash abuse. I hate unnecessary dashes.

 

Tommy would pass the ball to Johnny, who would score.
I know people think it's supposed to sound more intelligent, but it doesn't.
Their/its
I'm sure, however, that it's such a common mistake that one day it won't be a mistake anymore.
Writers who don't understand how to use apostrophes (What, exactly, is do damned confusing about it?)
Writers whose idea of a proper noun is not the same as mine. (Folks, we're not writing a court document. No need to be that formal)

 

any win over another team pisses me off.

 

Fixed.

Mine is comprise. Everyone thinks he's (not they're) the one who knows how to use it correctly. No one does. It should be banned. At my last paper, we did ban it.

 

and if they are going to use those fucking words, at least use "currently is" and "now is." i hate splitting that shit up.

 

Nothing more than passive voice when our focus should be on active voice. Keep it active, eh?

More intelligent? More like pretentious, and that won't help bring in readers.

 

One of our young guys started writing "would this" and "would that" earlier this year. I told him that was SID writing and to stop it now.

As for SIDs one that I get in releases all the time that drives me nuts is the their/its thing but in reverse. One guy we deal with insists on saying (for example) "The Braves won its sixth straight game."

If School Name is an "its" then Mascots are a "their."

 

Not really sure why this bothers me so much: 'Colombia' is a country. 'Columbia' is a university.

Not ... f'n ... difficult.

 

I hate to post on this thread because I know I hack half of these rules to death, but I am posting in the defense of the writers that do the two spaces before the period.

At one time (about 15 years ago), didn't we have to put two spaces before the period? I am thinking of the old black and green screened computers, but I cannot think of the name.