Use of apostrophe and why editing is important to writing

At the point at which I gave an example of a parenthetic expression in last week's column, two possessive nouns were used without apostrophes. These were, 'Johns ', instead of 'John's' and 'neighbours' instead of 'neighbour's'.

 Apostrophes serve several purposes, one of which is to show possession. They are also used in contractions. A contraction is a word in which a letter has been removed after two words are merged to form one word. Common contractions in every day usage include; doesn't (does not), shouldn't (should not), couldn't (could not), won't (will not) and we're (we are), just to mention a few.

The possessive form of pronouns does not, however, require the use of an apostrophe. Regular possessive pronouns are 'yours', 'hers', 'his', 'theirs' and 'its'. The use of the possessive 'its' is confusing as many people tend to write 'it's'.The following sentence illustrates this: 'His phone is too old, its buttons are all worn out'. Some people are likely to write: 'His phone is too old, it's buttons are all worn out' (grammatically wrong). Such easily overlooked errors underscore the importance of editing.

EDITING

Editing (from the point of a media house), can be exciting and boring in equal measure. The determinant is the quality of work before the person doing the editing. We have very good writers, average ones and those who are not gifted in writing. Not that they are less intelligent, but more because they cannot express themselves coherently in writing. Interestingly, some of the poor writers are gifted orators. All said and done, writing is an art.

I often come across writings that are full of gems, but which put one off by the way they are presented; sentences running into each other, tenses all mixed up, what should come first in the narration coming somewhere in the middle or last, leaving the reader bewildered.

When sentences and ideas build on each other progressively, or when there is a subtle switch consistent with the thrust of the story, the reading becomes interesting. The work of the editor then is to render poorly written opinions and news stories readable in a simple and easy to read manner. Some writings are unnecessarily long and repetitive.

A 1,000 word story can be cut down to only 500 words and still retain clarity, despite looking markedly different from the original script. First, an editor determines whether an article is topical and worth publishing. He checks out the facts to ensure they are correct. He looks out for grammatical errors; reconstructing sentences where necessary. If an opinion has the potential of attracting libel suits, the editor has licence to take out the offending section or simply 'kill' the article.  

The following passage taken from a newspaper editorial early this week is confusing and makes good argument for editing: "The JP re-election manifesto will be keenly scrutinised and compared and contrasted with their track record of since April 2013 often by both friend and foe and nondescript". One wonders what the writer was driving at. An editor has several things to do here. First, he has to determine what connection exists between a manifesto and a track record to warrant 'contrasting'.

Second, he has to also determine whether the word 'nondescript' serves any purpose in the sentence. Finally, does the sentence construction make sense to the reader? In the expression, 'of since April 2013', the preposition 'of' is unnecessary. The conjunction 'and' in the sentence, 'keenly scrutinised and compared and contrasted with', is used more times than is necessary because a coma between the terms 'scrutinised' and 'compared' suffices. 'Keenly scrutinised, compared and contrasted with', serves the purpose. Notably too, there are words and expressions that are often employed out of context. For instance, 'careless and 'care less', 'anyone' and 'any one', 'disinterested' and 'uninterested'.

 In the sentence, 'As careless as he is, he couldn't care less'; the first word 'careless' implies not paying attention to detail while 'care less' is a dismissive attitude, lacking concern even in the face of admonishment.

The words 'Everyday' and 'Every day' tend to be more confusing. Everyday (as one word) refers to 'common place' or 'normal'. Every day (as two distinct words) refers to each day. However, the words 'Anytime' and 'Any time' can be used interchangeably, but there also are more complex rules on their usage.