EDITORIAL HUMOR

This MuddyUm Editor Is Holding Up Your Article

Go ahead and tell the teacher if you think I’ll care

I don’t care because I know already. What, you thought I didn’t know? I don’t know who you are specifically, but I know you are out there complaining that I’m holding up your lame-ass article because of a run-on sentence. You could bisect ten such sentences in a fraction of the time it took you to write your whinging complaint message, but far be it from me to tell you what to do right?

You could have found out for yourself what to do by perusing the articles under the “Outlaws” tab, in which case you would know all about kickers as well as not to throw around parentheses and ellipses like totally and awesome at a shopping mall. You would also know enough to leave the period off the end of the subtitle. You really hang yourself up with that, so don’t blame me for the delay. Eagle-eye Brearley is sure to see it and none of us will cross her by simply deleting it for you. Do you think any one of us actually wants to walk the plank? For you?

When making your correction do remember to update the display title¹, won’t you? There’s a dear.

I’ll take care of obvious things myself, correcting a typo here, capitalizing a word there. But there are some unforgivable faux pas you will just have to fix yourself.

Clichés and stock phrases

Now before I begin, I’m just going to come right out and say it: I have no choice but to highlight these, then circle back to see if you have nipped the problem in the bud.

Stock phrases make your writing seem as lazy as a snake in the sun. This is a humor publication. Stale phrases are about as funny as stale bread — which could be funny, depending on circumstances, but I digress. In an entrepreneurship or self help publication, stock phrases and clichés — also known as buis-speak — are all you need. But if they are all you have in your tucker-bag, then you go a-waltzing with The Ascent.

Much as I might want to, I can’t correct such problems for you. There are myriad ways of revising, so you must decide.

Countable things

Please don’t do this to me. If you overloaded yourself with goodies at the convenience store, that’s not too much snacks. It’s too many snacks. If you want to make a joke about all the guys who are total idiots, and yes, they are legion, there is no amount of total idiots. There are a number of total idiots. There will never be less total idiots, but in some future utopia there may be fewer.

Think less water, fewer drops. Amount of rain, number of raindrops. Less humanity, fewer people.

Much as I might want to I can’t correct such problems for you, I won’t. I am too busy uncurling my toenails.

Glaringly Obvious

I am carefully writing this paragraph so I will not forgetfully leave out anything I should definitely include. Get the picture? Stephen King is right, if unfashionable.

Awesome

Just — no. Never use the word awesome in any article submitted to MuddyUm nor in any of your writing. It is way past beaten into the subsoil of our culture to become a one-word cliché even more tiresome than “groovy” was back in the sixties. You will find yourself speaking it, but don’t beat yourself up over that. Our oral culture is so saturated with awesomeness that it sneaks up and ambushes us.

Writing is much more self conscious than speaking. If you see the word awesome appear on your screen it is time for seven slams of the backspace key. Please. Do this for yourself. So ubiquitous is the word awesome that it no longer means anything at all.

But

Comedic gold mine: Making fun of people who say awesome a lot. Awe-some.

If it’s something super easy, I’ll just fix it in the service of efficiency and move on. I might leave a note to tell you what I’ve done, then publish. But if my note leaves the solution up to you, consider which action will result in more timely publication of your work: A snarky letter to the editor-in-chief or the making of a minor correction?

Thank you so much Susan Brearley and Anu Anniah for your help and support.

¹ If that link doesn’t work you are using the phone app. Medium deprives us of their precious help pages when using the phone app.² As a public service, here is a screen shot of the relevant portion of the page.

² That stupid little bot doesn’t count.