Talking About Writing on CCATP

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Originally published at: Talking About Writing on CCATP - TidBITS

In the latest episode of the Chit Chat Across the Pond podcast, Allison Sheridan and I delve into the details of how I write, the importance of editing, and how I’ve come to rely on Grammarly to improve the mechanistic aspects of my writing. Our conversation was sparked by “Why Grammarly Beats Apple’s Writing Tools for Serious Writers” (30 January 2025) but goes much deeper into the underpinnings of my approach to writing. If you’d like a look behind the curtain, it’s worth a listen.

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Terrific reflections, Adam. Just a few of takeaways:

“One of the jobs of an editor is to say, this isn’t necessary. It might be okay. There might be nothing wrong with it, but it isn’t necessary.”

I am always impressed that we never find an unneeded word in your TidBITS. Deleting the unnecessary applies also to coding, architecture, jazz, dance, classical music, and fashion. In university courses, I always devote one day to quotations about this from Steve Jobs, Keith Richards, William of Ockham, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Ambrose Bierce, Charlie Mingus, Igor Stravinsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, Leonardo da Vinci, Tyrus Wong, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Blaise Pascal, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Voltaire, Goethe, Pliny the Younger, Cato, Cicero, Dr. Niklaus Wirth, Coco Chanel, and Michael Kors.
I have added you to the show.

On hyphenation and compound modifiers: Don’t get me started.

On clarity: “…you’re looking at each word and saying, does this word convey the emotion I want?” You made it clear (!) you refer to fiction (“a different skill”), but I admit I hadn’t considered the distinction.

Clarity is the single most important property. I always tell my producers and fellow broadcasters, “If it’s not clear, nothing else matters.”

You should teach a course.

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You’re too kind. :slight_smile: If anything, I’m on the verbose side of the spectrum with tech journalism, partly because I want to convey nuance whenever possible, which seldom lends its ton concision. (And, yes, “consision” is a word, meaning “conciseness”! It felt right, but I wasn’t sure until I typed it and then looked it up.)

It’ so, so difficult. I waffle over hyphenation probably more than anything else.

It would be a challenge, though an interesting one. At this point, much of how I write and edit is instinctive, and I’m not sure I’d be able to explain why I do something without some thought. It might be similar to teaching my son to drive in that I had to put words to something I had been doing for over 30 years and ceased to think about in a high-level way.

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Well, you could always consult Fowler. . . . :slightly_smiling_face:

But seriously, hyphenation is shifting ground, now. I no longer have to worry about professional hyphenation issues but I’m always looking for clarity and these days I’m a little befuddled.

At the moment, I’ve settled on the principle that things should be hyphenated when the composite is a thing rather than an adjectival modification of a thing. But then, I can think of exceptions. . . . :roll_eyes:

Dave

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Constance Hale explained it best in Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. Her book went out of print in 1999, but it still contains the best rule of thumb in its rule-of-thumb section on hyphens.

A new compound term always begins as two words. As its use becomes more common, it acquires a hyphen. As it becomes commonplace, the hyphen disappears. A logo-ologist researching early literature (Internet Archive, for example) will find this progression through the years:

web site becomes web-site becomes website

cyber space becomes cyber-space becomes cyberspace

What is the right time to de-hyphenate? That is left as an exercise for the reader.

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Thus “e mail”? Pretty sure that started as “e-mail”, skipping this putative first step. Or maybe Hale would maintain it started as “electronic mail,” and both lost three syllables and acquired its hyphen in the same step? Anyway, no argument to Adam’s waffle-inducing vexation with them: hyphens can indeed be a nuisance to use “correctly.”

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In law, too. The Court of Appeal (for England and Wales) has commented more than once that “if it is not necessary to do something, it is necessary not to do it”.

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Love this. I’ll add it to my list of quotes.