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When revising, it is important to look at each sentence for subject-verb agreement. This is one of those skills that comes naturally over time. 

What do dieting and writing have in common? They often travel together—and should. In writing, to diet means to determine what words, phrases, and extraneous content need to go. They represent the unwanted pounds that weigh down a manuscript.

Revision gives the writer an opportunity to go through her copy to tighten her sentences and rephrase passages for the most effective copy possible. According to best-selling author Roy Peter Clark, “…The concrete noun lets us see and the action verb helps us move. Experts on writing have always preferred strong nouns and verbs.”

For several years, writers have been urged to “trim the fat” of extraneous adverbs and adjectives. We’re encouraged to use lean, mean story construction for readers’ pleasure, while holding and expanding that pleasure with the ebb and flow of concrete detail and curiosity-generating abstract thought.

Purpose-driven writing takes time to conceive and deliver. Those in the writing business today have many recommendations for writers about their content. For instance, web content has specific parameters for the writer; length should run within 250-500 words, snappy headline titles grab a reader’s interest; copy should have plenty of pertinent links to other sites for more information.

When you stop to consider that readers of web content are, in general, looking for particular subjects, research material, etc., the standards derived are necessary and make sense. Keywords used within the copy help snag attention from search engines, while the organization of the copy finishes drawing in those engines.

Novels and magazines don’t have search engines, but searches are made. Readers talk to each other. The discoveries of one become shared knowledge and generate recommendations to other readers. Therefore, the same logic applies to novels.

Interest and reader staying-power is forfeited, if detailed descriptions bog down the reader’s quest to move with the story line. With non-fiction, writing rules for fiction can prevent an article from boring the reader to death. Poetry, too, uses some of fiction’s rules to keep the reader motivated and moving forward to the end.

The diet begins when the first draft is complete. Experienced writers know that by the time the first revision is finished, their stories have passed one hurdle of the editing process. Entire swathes of descriptive narrative lay on the editing floor. Subtext paths that went nowhere are removed. Most of all, the concrete feel of the piece has come to the foreground.

Parts and pieces of story line, description, character backstory, etc. have bitten the bullet, dying as they lived; in that brief twilight second from the writer’s hand.

With the second revision, more noun changes with precise action verbs bring paragraphs to attention. The few remaining adjectives are trade

Serious Word “age”

I love words.  They are fun, they come in all kinds of languages, you can rhyme them, say them for nothing, say them quietly or loudly or even not at all and, best of all, they are easy to exploit.  One word can have several meanings, and if you add  extra letters to them, they can mean even more.

One of my very favourite things, as a matter of fact, is to play the “age” game, I add those three letters to random words to see if it works.  Sometimes the “g” is soft, as in “massage”, and sometimes it is a hard “g” like the word “message”.  The words may end up as nouns or as verbs and once in a while you can turn a noun into a verb or vice versa.   Usually the hard “g” turns it into a noun type of word and the soft makes it a bit more verb “ish”.  

Bless is a good one, “blessage”  (hard “g”) is a word I use when someone sneezes, it means “bless you” in Binkdonk’s dictionary. 

Burp is interesting because it uses both types of “g”.  “Burpage” (soft “g”), is what you do with gassy infant.  Burpage (hard “g”) is usually what happens after guzzling a carbonated beverage much too fast.

Fail;  not what anybody wants to do, however, “failage” (hard “g”) happens when tests are not studied for or when there is a lack of focus and intent in whatever is attempted (nothing that some serious planning cannot overcome). 

Spank is my favourite! “Spankage”, (soft “g”)  is reminiscent of a spanking that relaxes you, it even sounds like it when said in a soft voice.  On the other hand, “spankage” (hard “g”) is what you get when you don’t obey.

Whip, as unlikely as it seems, makes sense.  “Whippage”, is what you get when going through dense forest undergrowth at any kind of rapid pace.  Especially if the person ahead of you is just letting the branches fling back at you.  Try to go first, in order  to prevent this calamity from happening to you .   

Oh! The possibilities are endless. There is also the option of changing the meanings of words that already have the “age” suffix.  Just by making it hard or soft. 

Do be careful with the soft “g’s” in case it sounds too pretentious but have fun and really enjoy that sound as it slides out of your mouth.

Serious Word “age”

I love words.  They are fun, they come in all kinds of languages, you can rhyme them, say them for nothing, say them quietly or loudly or even not at all and, best of all, they are easy to exploit.  One word can have several meanings, and if you add  extra letters to them, they can mean even more.

One of my very favourite things, as a matter of fact, is to play the “age” game, I add those three letters to random words to see if it works.  Sometimes the “g” is soft, as in “massage”, and sometimes it is a hard “g” like the word “message”.  The words may end up as nouns or as verbs and once in a while you can turn a noun into a verb or vice versa.   Usually the hard “g” turns it into a noun type of word and the soft makes it a bit more verb “ish”.  

Bless is a good one, “blessage”  (hard “g”) is a word I use when someone sneezes, it means “bless you” in Binkdonk’s dictionary. 

Burp is interesting because it uses both types of “g”.  “Burpage” (soft “g”), is what you do with gassy infant.  Burpage (hard “g”) is usually what happens after guzzling a carbonated beverage much too fast.

Fail;  not what anybody wants to do, however, “failage” (hard “g”) happens when tests are not studied for or when there is a lack of focus and intent in whatever is attempted (nothing that some serious planning cannot overcome). 

Spank is my favourite! “Spankage”, (soft “g”)  is reminiscent of a spanking that relaxes you, it even sounds like it when said in a soft voice.  On the other hand, “spankage” (hard “g”) is what you get when you don’t obey.

Whip, as unlikely as it seems, makes sense.  “Whippage”, is what you get when going through dense forest undergrowth at any kind of rapid pace.  Especially if the person ahead of you is just letting the branches fling back at you.  Try to go first, in order  to prevent this calamity from happening to you .   

Oh! The possibilities are endless. There is also the option of changing the meanings of words that already have the “age” suffix.  Just by making it hard or soft. 

Do be careful with the soft “g’s” in case it sounds too pretentious but have fun and really enjoy that sound as it slides out of your mouth.

Ammon Shea recently spent a year of his life reading the OED from start to finish. Over the next few months he will be posting weekly blogs about the insights, gems, and thoughts on language that came from this experience. His book, Reading the OED, has been published by Perigee, so go check it out in your local bookstore. In the post below Ammon reflects on an article he saw in The New York Times Book Review.

Last Sunday, in the New York Times, I read a book reviewer taking an author to task for her word use. The reviewer stated that “the last time I checked the American Heritage Dictionary, in spite of how computer trade journalists might choose to use the word, “architect” was not recognized as a verb”.

First, putting aside the obvious slander against computer trade journalists (who themselves would likely not claim to be arbiters of what is recognized in language), are there perhaps some other sources that might recognize “architect” as a verb? Surprisingly enough, there are - both the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster’s Third International list “architect” as a verb.

The OED provides citations from as far back as 1813, quoting a letter from Keats, in which he writes “This was architected thus By the great Oceanus.” The OED also specifies that the word, in addition to being used as a verb, is used in a figurative and transferred sense. Perhaps those computer trade journalists were engaging their poetic whimsy and quoting this early nineteenth century versifier.

Webster’s Third does not provide dates for their citation (“the book is not well architected”), but it is from the Times Literary Supplement, and so perhaps the aforementioned computer trade journalists were simply imitating the writing style of some other, more lofty and intellectual publication.

It is always a little bit risky to make a claim that something is not a word, or not used thusly, or has never been a certain part of speech. First, there is simply the possibility that you are wrong. But also, if you spend enough time looking through dictionaries you are just as likely as not to find one or two which contradict whatever position you’ve so boldly staked out. Of course, the flip side of this is that if someone states that you are wrong on the meaning of a word, you can usually find some source that will back up your position.

I’ll bet that the hordes of angry computer trade journalists who read that comment are right now sharpening their pens and rifling through their dictionaries, searching about for the perfect vicious rejoinder to refute this review.

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