Against ‘and’

Susie Helme

It’s usually not good writing to use the construction ‘x and y’. It’s indecisive. You are trying to convey something to the reader, so make up your mind what is it you’re trying to convey. x or y? This is one place where Less is More. Give the reader too many adjectives or adverbs, and they just don’t know what to think.

‘She looked at him sadly and nervously…’ Well, make up your mind, was she sad or was she nervous?

‘The venerable and enigmatic old man…’ Well, was he venerable, enigmatic or old?

‘He waited with anticipation and foreboding…’ Anticipation is when you’re feeling positive about something that’s going to happen; foreboding is when you’re negative. So, how was he feeling?

‘The forest was eerily and spookily silent…’ Which was it? Eerie? Or spooky?

This also begs the question as to whether we need either of the two qualifiers. Adjectives and adverbs Tell the reader how to feel; you want to Show the reader how to feel through the power of your action, dialogue, sensory clues and character development. Not short-cutting by sticking a word or two in. ‘The forest was silent’ packs more of a punch without them.

Confused

Some redundancies are just careless, and you can correct them when editing. If you said in chapter 1 that her cardigan was red and in chapter 5 he is admiring her blue cardigan, you can correct it at that point.

If you don’t want the reader to be confused, you have to start by YOU not being confused. Is she the sort of gal who would wear a red cardigan? Or is she more of a blue girl? You may have had in your head all through chapters 2, 3, 4 that she was a red sort of gal, and now you have to go back all the way through and correct yourself.

Some redundancies, you need to correct on the spot. You are creating your world as you write. You need to be decisive from the get-go about what that world is. This is your fictional world. You make the rules.

No buts

Sometimes, confusion cannot be ameliorated by simply changing the ‘and’ to a ‘but’.

‘The argument covered familiar issues, but this level of disagreement was unprecedented…’ You might argue that the two clauses are not necessarily contradictory. They were talking about issues they had talked about many times before, but this time, the argument was especially fierce. But I would argue that this sentence is still confusing. What is it you want to convey? Do you want us to know that this issue was a regular one? Or that this argument was a big one?

‘The judge was strict but fair…’ Theoretically, they could be both. But what do you most want to emphasise? That they were strict? Or that they were fair?

Sometimes the meaning of word1 and word2 are so similar, you really don’t need both. ‘She felt sad and dejected’. To make a stronger sentence, just pick one; delete the other.

I would not say this is a hard and fast. Sometimes adding a word makes the sentence stronger. ‘The wedding guests came from every town and city…’ Word2 serves to enlarge the statement. Those wedding guests really came from all over the place.

Collocations

Some word pairs like ‘hard and fast’, ‘near and far’ may be ok, though if overused, they become clichés. These are called collocations. The phrase means something more than just the meaning of word1 plus the meaning of word2. ‘Near and far’ doesn’t mean ‘close and also far away’; it means ‘across a very large radius’. ‘Come and go’ does not mean ‘come here and also go there’; it means something is transient. ‘Flesh and blood’ does not mean ‘both skin and blood’ it means ‘living, alive’. ‘Cats and dogs’ does not mean ‘felines and canines’; it means it was raining really, really hard. ‘Power and majesty’ doesn’t mean he was powerful and he was majestic. It means he was one big, important dude.

And some, like ‘horse and carriage’, word1 is no good without word2. ‘Old and worn’ just seem to go together. The thing is worn because it’s old, old because it’s worn.

Cadence is important for good writing, and it’s hard to make rules for. You have to feel it. ‘They continued marching, their steps brisk and resolute…’ I just feel as if ‘They continued marching’ would be too boring without the adjectives, and choosing one adjective over the other would make the sentence too short. I also might be trying to say that they were walking fast precisely because they were so sure about where they were going. ‘The dying tamarisk succumbed to disease and decay…’ Meaning-wise, you might not have needed all three—dying, disease, decay—but the alliteration sounds nice.

Watch out for contradicting yourself with your ‘and’ clause. ‘He didn’t know what to say, and he answered, ‘yes, I…’ If he didn’t know what to say, how did he answer?

Pay attention also to the logical order of your ‘and’ clauses. ‘He raised his hand and slapped the desk for effect. ‘I know the answer, Teacher…’ The order of the actions is all wrong. First he raises his hand, then he says, ‘I know…’, then he slaps the desk.