Editor’s Scratchpad

Monday, April 30, 2001

‘A number of’
complaints about
language

A new pet peeve is making some wordsmiths forget about society's inability to attain closure with closure and the irony of the misuse of irony.

How many times in the past week have you heard or read "a number of?" At least "a few" or more likely "several" -- both better (granted, not much better) ways to quantify in those annoying instances when you don't really know how many.

At best, "a number of" says nothing, at worst it implies "I'm too lazy to be even a bit specific."

Then again, John Steinbeck, one of the greatest writers of all-time, was a trailblazer even in trite phraseology. "A number of" appears often in his stories.

Good thing I wasn't his editor.

--Dave Reardon

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