The Little Things

The most troublesome words of editing are those wee two- and three-letter words, the kind that have totally different meanings with the change of just one letter. The irritating part is that they sneak past the keenest eyes in just a blink. Words such as at, it, an, as, am, ad, ab, ah, are, arc, arm, art, awe, ace, ade, age, ale, ape, ate, axe, aye (well, you get the idea. And those are just the a's).

One way to avoid typos of this kind is to read backward. Start at the bottom of a page and read right-to-left, bottom-to-top. That way, you’re looking at words. If you find one like “art” or “arm” and have no need for either word in that text, you catch the error before it becomes errata.

You see, grammar is looking at the fine print, the little words, and the tiny ways we mess up a page of type. Haven’t you heard: little things mean a lot!