From a post I wrote yesterday morning:
MacUpdater checks on updates for non-App Store apps. The app is free to use for checking (after which you can update on your own). Buy the app and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater as a free app — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.When I looked more carefully at those sentences, I saw two problems: the awkward “non-App Store apps,” and too many instances of app and apps. What was I supposed to do about “non-App Store apps” anyway? I looked at Garner’s Modern English Usage:
When a name is used attributively as a phrasal adjective, it ordinarily remains unhyphenated. E.g.: “The Terry Maher strategy put immediate pressure on rival bookshop chains.” Raymond Snoddy, “Book Price War Looms in Britain,” Fin. Times, 28-29 Sept.1991, at 1. This becomes quite awkward, though, when the two words in a proper noun are part of a longer phrasal adjective <the King County-owned stadium> <a New York-doctor-owned building>. The only reasonable thing to do is rewrite <the stadium owned by King County> <a building owned by a New York doctor>.So I rewrote. Here again is the original paragraph, which by now may have scrolled out of sight:
MacUpdater checks on updates for non-App Store apps. The app is free to use for checking (after which you can update on your own). Buy the app and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater as a free app — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.And the revised version:
MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see all at once what needs updated.Before, four instances of app and two apps. After, one app and three apps. I’m not keen on the repetition of the name MacUpdater, but it beats the repetition of app. And please note: “needs updated” is a Illinoism for comic effect, not a typo.
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Fresca wondered in a comment if it’s obvious that MacUpdater is itself an app. It’s not. (And if it were a web service examining what’s on your computer, that might seem sketchy.) I don’t want to clarify by writing “The MacUpdater app checks on updates for apps not from the App Store.” Instead:
A useful download: MacUpdater checks on updates for apps not from the App Store. MacUpdater is free to use for checking (after which you can update apps on your own). Buy MacUpdater and it will update for you whatever apps you choose. I use MacUpdater just for checking — it’s an ultra-convenient way to see what needs updated.I took out “all at once” too.
Related reading
All OCA “How to improve writing” posts (Pinboard)
[This post is no. 84 in a series, dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]
comments: 5
I love your rewrite posts.
Your paragraph reads better now, but if you never once call MacUpdater an app, is it clear that it is one?
(I truly don't know--maybe it is––I'm a bit foggy on the concept.)
P.S. What about that "ultra"? Is it overkill? Wouldn't "convenient" alone suffice?
You asked “if you never once call MacUpdater an app, is it clear that it is one?”
Yikes — I guess not. Clicking on the link would make it clear that it’s an app to download. I’ll revise.
I liked “ultra” for its informality. Clicking Check for Updates from an app’s menu is convenient, but checking all apps at once — ultra-convenient! But I wouldn’t use “ultra” in a more formal setting.
MICHAEL: Ah, there--yes, that's clear.
I usually use "super" (for usually entirely unnecessary informal hyperbole), but I may start borrowing "ultra".
I searched my blog and found that I’ve used a number of times: ultra-appropriate, ultra-crafty, ultra-creepy, ultra-dowdy, ultra-geeky, ultra-informative, ultra-modern, ultra-privileged. I guess it’s my go-to informal intensifying prefix.
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