Thursday, December 02, 2004

Two Fewer Things to Worry About

If you're still changing "raised" to "reared" when it involves people rather than animals, cut it out. People can be raised. I know I was. (If I was reared, it was done discreetly while I was sleeping.)

And documents can indeed "say" things. If you're tempted to change "said" to "stated," put the red pencil down and take a deep breath. Even if you were reared to say "stated."

3 comments:

Leon Bertoletti said...

Thanks for the lesson. As an Italian journalist writing in English, I have a question for you: Is it correct to write "according to" followed by a newspaper name?

Bill said...

I have no problem with "according to" if it's used with a paraphrase and not a direct quote.

"The paper said" works for me if it means a research paper; "the article said" would be better if the meaning is a newspaper.

Leon Bertoletti said...

Thanks, Bill.