February 18, 2009

An exercise in brevity

Before: "All in all, the number of doors will add up to about 300 in the U.S."

After: "There will be about 300 U.S. doors."

I am copy editor; hear me fix your shit!
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4 comments:

Tantra Flower said...

I wish I had your skills. I'm so wordy and redundant, it makes me ill. But when I edit my blog entries, etc., they become all cold and sterile. Flavorless. You have a gift for being concise but not dry. And I'm jealous of you! lol

February 18, 2009 at 6:54 PM
DBW said...

Now, I haven't counted personally, but I'm fairly certain there are more than 300 doors in the U.S. Perhaps a fact checker was needed as well as a copy editor?

February 18, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Anonymous said...

It's difficult to tell from what I presume is a snippet without context, but I don't think I'd change "300 in the U.S." to "300 U.S. doors." I see them as possibly different. If the doors are from Canada, then they're still Canadian doors in the U.S., and not U.S. doors.

I am copy editor, too; see me nit-pick.

February 19, 2009 at 1:45 AM
Sarah said...

You're right, Laura. The context is hard to detect here. To clarify, 'doors' in the retail business is little more than a fancy word for 'stores.' So you could say something like, "The fragrance will be in more than 100 Duane Reade doors by year end."

February 19, 2009 at 1:06 PM

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