Back in 1970 the thing was no comma at the end of a series

Everyone who writes or edits has some absolutes they just won't put up with. I come loaded with them, but when I went back to editing in my 60s, I found the new generations had new ones but were just as insistent about them. One of mine was the use of "on" with a day or date as in "on Tuesday" or on "Jan. 15." A journalism professor had insisted on leaving it out, saying, "you can't stand on a day," and over 35 years of editing I have been dutifully removing them. One night in that most recent stint, I took several "ons" out of a story. Later I saw a page proof that had been gone over by a kid fresh out of college with a whole new set of that type of irritant. He had dutifully put all the "ons" back into the story. As I had the last look, I didn't let them go back in.  One of the worst new ones I saw was some guy on line who went apoplectic every time he saw two spaces after a sentence instead of one. That guy was headed for a heart attack before he was 40.

Where do these come from? Many of them are drilled into us as students. Others we pick up on the way. A new one I would edit out every time I see it is lately writers and newscasters cannot help saying "back in" as in "back in 1998." You see and hear it everywhere and it is totally unnecessary. "In 1998" is fine and if print media are trying to save space they can save two words every time a date comes up. Think of the miles of newsprint and gallons of ink saved if editors everywhere removed those two words every time they see them.

What's kind of silly about an editor's foibles is most of these tiny ones don't matter at all. Does the substance change if there are two spaces after a sentence instead of one? Does it make any difference to the story whether a guy does it Wednesday or on Wednesday? Does the time frame change if something happened in 1998 rather than back in 1998? Nope. These things seem to go in cycles anyway. Take the oxford comma. I was taught you leave that last comma out of a series because the commas only indicate the missing "and" between other items in that series. You leave it out when the series ends with "and something." And I can remember the horror on the face of the teacher when I told a class of fourth grade writing students you didn't put that comma in. But whether the comma is there or not doesn't matter to the meaning either. Maybe age has mellowed me but I just let that stuff go any more. There is enough to do without splitting hairs over a comma or a space.

So what brought this on? I am editing a story and part of the story is about editing, so it is double indemnity. I had written this: "I have this fancy new weather thing …." I had a high school English teacher who insisted "thing" should never be used.  There is always a more detailed substitute. Never write "thing." So when I saw it the alarm went off. The context and other constraints didn't allow a detailed description of the instrument which has an outdoor sensor that broadcasts the reading to a bedside monitor. So I changed "thing" to "device." Then what hit me was what more does that tell a reader? If you think about it, "device" really means "thing." It is no more specific. And, for that matter so does "instrument," though both seem to sound and look better but neither tells the reader any more except perhaps by inference. Unable to come up with anything better, I stuck with device.

That teacher also instilled another trigger in me. She said every time you see a version of the verb "to be" change it. That is simply a state of being, says only something is standing there doing nothing. Her advice was every time you write "is" or "was" look for an active verb. That advice has served me well over the years and a couple of reviewers have pointed out my use of verbs as something positive in my writing. Often finding an active verb takes very little time.

Well I was going to go on about editors' rules but it is time to get back to work. Or, I intended to go on about editors' rules but more important obligations call me back to work.