The New York Times'
After Deadline examines grammar, usage and style in the newsroom.
A sampling:
In a Word
This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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Mr. Chaffetz said he took a fair amount of flack from other Republicans over his friendship with Mr. Weiner but found it easy to defend.
If we indeed wanted to use a colloquialism here, the one we wanted was “flak.”
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PHILADELPHIA — There are times, at the Penn Museum here, when you are almost hesitant to breathe. And it has nothing to do with the recent flurry of events in which Chinese officials suddenly forbid the display of the remarkable objects in the exhibition “Secrets of the Silk Road.”
The past tense is “forbade.”
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Glaeser would prefer to see neighborhoods of skyscrapers than acres of suburbs.
Make it “would rather see.” We “prefer” something “to,” not “than.”
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It also said the money Mr. Fletcher claimed to manage was “greatly inflated” because his firm, Fletcher Asset Management, double-counted its assets, which Mr. Fletcher said was $429 million, according to the court filing.
“Assets” is plural; make it “were” (or use an alternative like “totaled”).
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Iago Kachkachishvili, who heads the sociology department at Tbilisi State University, said the show seemed more aimed at attracting viewers than setting off a sexual revolution.
We needed a second “at” to make it parallel: “seemed aimed more at … than at …”
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Knaus, 39, is the only crew chief in the Nascar garage who consistently receives as much or more credit than his driver for the success of his race team.
“As much” needs another “as,” or better yet, rephrase.
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A proposed new exhibition at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum here, occupying some of the same barracks or blocks, will retain the piled hair and other remains, which by now have become icons, as inextricable from Auschwitz as the crematoria and railway tracks.
The stylebook says this:
crematory, crematories. Preferable to crematorium(s).Do not use crematoria.
