Sunday, May 31, 2015

How to improve writing (no. 59)

From the national news, about a crane-and-building accident in Manhattan: “Luckily, the situation could have been far worse.” What’s lucky though is not that things could have been worse; it’s that things were not worse.

Better: The situation could have been far worse. But fortunately , &c.

Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 59 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

comments: 2

Chris said...

I walked down that block at least once this week. Luckily (for me), it was not at the time of the accident.

Michael Leddy said...

And how. NBC said the street was partly closed. Thank goodness.