Last week was Labor Day and The Snarky Editor didn’t feel much like laboring, so she decided to make you all work instead. Sorry ‘bout that. (Not.)
So let’s check how well you’ve been paying attention. Here’s what stopped The Snarky Editor cold when she came across each of these selections.
At worst a member of crew would have a discrete word with them.
As we’ve talked about several times, discrete means separate, referring to something that exists in several parts. The word the author was in search of is discreet, meaning tactful — in this case, a quiet hint rather than a loud and public accusation.
It pictured a full-scale mother whale and her cub…
A baby whale is called a calf. Not a cub.
… their colleagues in Manilla….
The capital city of the Philippines is Manila. So are the envelopes and the file folders, by the way, though without being capitalized; The Snarky Editor frequently sees that usage mispelled as well. She’s even seen a reference to “vanilla” folders.
“I’m not going,” he mewed.
Just a couple of weeks ago, The Snarky Editor posted about odd and obtrusive attributions, and here’s another one. Cats mew, humans don’t. If he really was mewing, how did he form words? He might have whined, he might have howled, he might have argued. Or maybe he just said.
Be a might difficult to untangle the business…
The author means it will be a little difficult — and a mite is a very small portion. So we could even say that it might be a mite difficult to untangle the business.
…. short sleeves that displayed surprisingly firm and strong pecs instead of the spaghetti-stand arms of some of my former … boyfriends.
Of course he could have firm and strong pecs, which is short for pectoral muscles, which are the muscles of the chest. But clearly because of the reference to short sleeves and arms, the author meant that this guy’s biceps are surprisingly firm and strong.
The Snarky Editor would dearly love to (eventually) have engraved on her tombstone, “She taught authors not to let unattached body parts wander around.” Sadly, it is apparently a losing battle. Instead of letting this guy’s eyes spring out of his head and go zooming around the room, the author could have just said, He looks around the diner for a certain brunette. It’s shorter, more direct, and a whole lot less distracting.
… without engaging his vocal chords…
The muscular bands which help us create words are vocal cords, not chords. It’s an easy error to understand, since words are sounds and chords are musical sounds. But vocal cords are named for their structure, not their function.
How did you do? Award yourself a chocolate-chip cookie for every right answer!
The Snarky Editor comes out of hiding occasionally to comment on the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing errors found in published books.
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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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