Department of Redundancy Department

When saying something once is plenty

The Snarky Editor is frequently puzzled by how authors seem to need to say things twice. Or more.

A young three-year-old boy raced up for a hug.

As opposed to an old three-year-old boy, perhaps?

She nodded in the affirmative and kept quiet.

While there are some cultural differences, in most of the world a nod is affirmative. If she was indicating disagreement, she wouldn’t nod in the negative; she would shake her head.

It was an Agatha Christie quote, from her autobiography, which Aunt Marge had memorized by heart.

Learned by heart, perhaps. Or memorized. Not both.

He felt the hollow of her spine and longed to kiss the spot with his lips.

What else would he use to kiss her? His earlobe?

They later burned all her papers in a fire.

Because it was just too hard to burn them in the icemaker.

She was wearing a short black miniskirt.

She must have left her long black miniskirt in the closet that day.

On her feet, she wore shiny black four-inch Louboutins.

Actually, the Snarky Editor would pay good money to see the show if she’d worn them on her elbows instead.

And we haven’t even touched on things like He thought to himself, and He laughed out loud, and His eyes were very unique. The Snarky Editor will save those for another day. Because, sadly, she’s pretty certain that redundancies will continue to crop up.

The Snarky Editor comes out of hiding occasionally to comment on the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing errors found in published books.

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