start a sentence with “There were . . ." or “There are . . .” The main objection to this form is that it is sloppy, nothing less. Why not, instead of saying, “There were 75 persons present,” say, “Seventy five persons were present”?
In the second place, news Writing should be as strong, as pithy, as possible. The use of active voice constructions and verbs leads to a healthier form than the use of passive constructions and noun phrases. As examples, two sentences, showing the various uses.
“The retiring president received a watch as a token of the members’ esteem.” How much better that is than “The president was made the recipient of a watch..."
VERB OUTPUNCHES NOUN
What is meant by using verbs for nouns is shown by the following sentences: “The committeee plans the compilation of figures . . . ”
That is weaker than to say, “The committee plans to compile figures . . . ”
Under the third heading we come to incorrect usages, yet usages that appear popular. To say, “The man was awarded a prize . . . " i s incorrect, yet i s used so constantly by those who should know better that i t i s not commonly classed as an error. Properly the sentence should read, “ A prize was awarded to the man,” for i t i s obvious the man was not awarded. The word “over ” i s one that frequently i s used incorrectly. It i s patently an ad verb of place, yet the sentence “Over 200 were present,” i s commonly found in news columns. For once brevity i s sac rificed for accuracy. Use “More than 200 . . . ” The fourth heading i s the matter of style, which varies quite as often as there are newspapers, and which frequently i s different on opposite pages of the same paper, for no good reason. To outline points of style would be useless for that reason. However, to observe rules of style when working for a newsp'aper i s of inestimable aid to that corps of time ruled workers, the copy editors. Less important than errors in speech, they ap pear quite as important in the eyes of conscientious copy readers. GRAMMAR ALSO SUFFERS Finally we come to breaches of well defined rules of grammar, which are al together too common on the part of Mr. Average Reporter. In recent observation, and this discussion i s confined to exam ples culled from stories read on a copy desk in recent months, errors in grammar come for the most part under the heading of tense. How often have you read such a sen tence as this: “Mr. Brown said that he will attend the convention”? Obviously what Mr. Brown said was, “I will attend the convention.” Then, in reporting him in indirect form, Mr. Reporter should say, “Mr. Brown said that he would at tend the convention.” The rule i s that when the principal verb i s in the past, subordinate verbs also should take a past form. Don’t say, “The man said that he i s a Norwegian.” Say, “The man said he was a Norwegian.” The best and eas iest rule to determine whether the sen tence i s correct i s to “listen” to it. Does i t sound right? If i t doesn’t, one can be almost certain that i t i s incorrect. The pronoun “none ” i s singular, al though used frequently, and incorrectly, as plural. “None was injured,” i s cor rect. The word means no one, which nat urally i s singular. In this discussion, which necessarily has been brief, only the surface of the subject has been scratched. Nothing has" been said of the practice of using abso lute adjectives in a comparative sense, such as “more perfect . . . ” and similar phrases. Nothing has been said of the constant repetition of the adverb “very.” These and a thousand rival superfluous words and phrases could be cited. Perfection i s not easy of attainment, but attention to concise, snappy, staccato, ear-pleasing writing will lead far on the road to that goal.
