The Copyeditor's Desk

Dear Miss Thistlebottom,

Is something wrong with the word “towards”? My editor keeps changing it to “toward.” I’m not married to “towards,” but I don’t see the point in the change.

—Backwards

Dear Backwards:

In a word, no. Like most editors, yours uses the dictionary as a prescriptive tool rather than a descriptive one. Look up toward in the Random House Webster’s, and you’ll find it appears first followed by “also towards.” The larger Webster’s Unabridged describes towards as “obsolete.”

The order in which the two variants appear suggests toward is preferred, and that’s why your editor industriously changes all your towards to toward.

When a term is considered so old-fashioned as to be obsolete, it may have a dialectic ring to it, rather like, say, “one or t’other.” In formal writing, you may wish to avoid a nonstandard effect. In fiction, poetry, or informal writing, however, you might usetowards for specific purposes, such as characterization or tone.

In recent years jargony use of the term “multiple“ has spread through the language like mildew through a loaf of day-old bread. Let it rain, and some newscaster will tell us that “multiple intersections are flooded” and “multiple streetlights are out.” Scholarly writers are especially attracted to the word, because it uses three syllables to express an idea that could be conveyed in one or two.

What’s wrong with multiple?

Well, in the first place, it’s uglier than pussley. Just say it: “multiple multiple multiple multuhpull . . .” Sounds like your mouth is full of marbles.

Aesthetic concerns aside, it’s vague and, outside the scientific and statistical contexts in which it performs effectively, it has no meaning. Like “area” when used to denote job, understanding, training, profession, or square footage, “multiple” could mean anything: some, a few, many, more than one, diverse . . . and any number of other possibilities.

We have here an author who has fallen helplessly in love with the word. This is a case where love went altogether blind at the garden gate:

There are multiple convergences between STS and feminist thought….

What is Author trying to say to us? If all she means is “more than one,” then we need no adjective at all, since more than one is inherent to the plural form convergences. Could she mean “many”? “Several”?

There are convergences between STS and feminist thought….
There are many convergences between STS and feminist thought….

We might want to get rid of the gassy “there are” construction: “Some convergences exist between STS and feminist thought….”

Moving on:

Embracing partisanship and struggle as they do, reconstructivists have taken to heart multiple critiques of objectivity, among which feminists figure prominently.

Many? Several? Diverse? Various? What does this mean?

Heaven help us:

[T]he maldistribution of the costs and benefits of technoscience occurs along multiple axes of difference….

Here, too, we have no idea what Author means. Are we looking at two such axes, a few, or a lot of them? Whatever, we’re assaulted with multiplicity in the very next sentence:

However, multiple categories of difference remain un- or underspoken in reconstructivist thought….

Can thought be clear if language is not? This statement is effectively devoid of clarity, because we cannot know what “multiple” is supposed to mean. By now, we begin to suspect Author’s intellectual credentials. It gets murkier:

[K]nowledge production would have to be generated by multiple counterpublics….

[K]nowledge production would have to be generated by multiple counterpublics….

We have fallen to the seventh circle of meaninglessness. Let us ascend:

Calling for democratizing technoscience, multiple and disunified as it is,…

Author appears to mean “multifaceted.”

This situation not only renders technoscience less relevant but less accountable to multiple constituencies.

Some of us would take umbrage with relevant as another example of jargon, but that’s a topic for another post. We’re stuck (again!) with “multiple” here. Does it have meaning? Many? Diverse? Various? Manifold? Who knows? Does Author herself know?

With a little thought, we all can find more precise terms that express what we mean. For example…

Real words for multiple:

a few
assorted
diverse
heterogeneous
manifold
many
more than one
multifaceted
multifarious
multiform
multipartite
nonuniform
numerous
of all sorts (or conditions, or kinds, or shapes, or descriptions, or types)
several
some
sundry
two (three, four…or whatever is appropriate)
various

Multiple can indeed mean “many.” The problem is that with overuse speakers and writers have come to imagine it means any of the various senses given above. The word has clear scientific and mathematical definitions (the product of a quantity by an integer; a group of terminals that make a circuit available at a number of points; formed by a coalescence of the ripening ovaries of several flowers). But when used carelessly, it fades, like a spirit in Hades, to a ghost of its former meaningful self.

by V.H.

The phrase is able to is perfectly idiomatic in English. Nothing wrong with that, eh?

Well, no. It will do in spoken English, where we can’t comb through our words once they fly out of our mouths. But written English is different from spoken English, because we can edit the stuff! Best of all, we can cut verbosity, saving ink, paper, the planet, and the reader’s time.

In about 99.9% of occurrences, is able to is verbose and unnecessary. It’s a rare occasion that this wordy locution actually serves a purpose. Replace it with can or could, or simply delete it.

Example:

When relatively affluent women enter the labor market, they are able to use some of their income to purchase the domestic services no longer produced in the home. . . .

Better, if Author meant to say it’s a fact that affluent women workers use their income to hire domestic workers:

When relatively affluent women enter the labor market, they use some of their income to purchase the domestic services no longer produced in the home.

Or, if Author meant to emphasize that affluent women may choose to use some of their earnings to hire domestic workers:

When relatively affluent women enter the labor market, they can use some of their income to purchase the domestic services no longer produced in the home.

Many scholars, especially those trained in the hard sciences, rely heavily on the abbreviations e.g. and i.e. Despite their popularity, the two are often confused.

E.G.

In Latin, e.g. is an abbreviation for exempli gratia. This phrase translates into English as “for example” and is typically followed by a list.

Below, an author uses it to introduce a string of references:

A great deal of work has been done to model the spread of tick-borne diseases (e.g., [15,] [18], and [22]).

Here Author could have replaced “e.g.” with “see, for example,…” a sign that the abbreviation is used correctdly.

Because i.e. means “that is,” it is in effect the basis for an independent clause: the pronoun that (id) is the subject of the verb is (est). So, if you run it into a sentence (rather than putting it inside parentheses, like this), then it takes a semicolon:

This result suggests a strongly iteroparous life cycle; i.e., a high probability of survival.

Using a comma in the same spot results in a comma splice:

This result suggests a strongly iteroparous life cycle, i.e., a high probablity of survival.

In the immortal words of Miss Thistlebottom: tsk, tsk, tsk!

Either abbreviation, i.e. or e.g., is always followed by a comma.

by T.M.