Artful subs and 10 tips to avoid wasting words
What are subs? You have until Monday 7 February to tune in to a great Radio 4 programme by Michael Rosen about the art of the sub or sub-editor.
When I was training as a journalist, The Sun’s subs were the best in Fleet Street – and they’re still hard to beat. If you doubt it, then try cutting down any broadsheet text into Sun-speak. You’ll see how difficult it is to tell a pacy, succinct story within a few pars.
Subs do more than correct grammar
On the R4 Word of Mouth programme, The Sun’s managing editor Graham Dudman and various subs show that subbing is not just about correcting grammar. It’s also about making “copy sparkle” and not wasting words.
Deleting waffle is one of the first lessons that trainee subs learn. Aim for the bare minimum and you can squeeze as much information as possible into a set space. If I delete ‘that’ in the first line of this par before ‘subbing’, for example, the sentence still makes sense.
10 words the sub will cut
So, without further ado, let’s cut to the chase. Here are my top 10 favourite waffles to delete or replace:
- Going to go – going
- Utilisation of – use
- In order to – to
- Without further ado – quickly
- Cut back – cut
- Currently – delete
- First and foremost – use one
- On a daily basis – every day
- Despite the fact – although
- In conjunction with – with
And it goes without saying, that cliches like ‘let’s cut to the chase’ should always be cut.
