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Break out your swords again, dear friends, and let’s once more do battle against redundancies — because authors continue to overstate the obvious.
For example, personal opinion. Opinions are always personal (unless they’re the ones issued by the Supreme Court, perhaps). And free gifts — because if the gift comes with cost or strings, it’s not a gift. And so on.
… old antiques…
Technically, for something to be antique it has to be more than 100 years old. If an item is newer than that, it might be collectible or simply interesting, but it’s not antique. So it’s not necessary to specify that an antique has been around for a while.
Denver laughed out loud as he led the way…
A laugh is by definition a sound. So while one can laugh loudly or softly, every laugh produces sound and therefore is “out loud.” Denver laughed as he led the way…
… veiled hats perched at the crown of their heads.
Because wearing a hat on one’s foot would be SO uncomfortable.
I reached out my hand…
If she’d reached out with her nose, that would be worth being specific.
… what they planned to do the rest of this summer before school started back in the fall.
There are multiple ways to improve this genuinely awkward sentence:
what they planned to do the rest of the summer
what they planned to do before school started
what they planned to do before fall
We just don’t need all of those options.
He stood to his feet.
If he’d stood to his ribs, everyone would pay attention. But feet? Everybody does that.
“Gretchen, can you get Lily a glass of water or something to drink, please?”
We can assume that the glass of water is intended to drink, because throwing it in Llly’s face is more likely to rile her up than calm her down. Adding the option just dilutes the impact of the sentence. “Gretchen, can you get Lily a glass of water?” is stronger and makes the point quite well. So does “Gretchen, can you get Lily something to drink?” — and then we’re covered if Gretchen comes back with brandy instead.
… acquiesced to his request by nodding my head.
To acquiesce is to agree. Nodding also indicates agreement. And nodding is a movement of the head — we can’t nod our elbows, for instance — so this sentence is doubly redundant.
The Snarky Editor comes out of hiding occasionally to comment on the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing errors found in published books.
#snarkyeditor #everybodyneedsaneditor
Leigh Michaels is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, including historical and contemporary romance, non-fiction books about writing, and local history. More than 35 million copies of her books are in print in 27 languages and more than 120 countries. She is also a writing coach and book editor, though she promises to be snarky only in regard to published books.
To find out more, check out https://leighmichaels.com
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