Since I started focusing on writing, I notice things more in what I read. I have a tendency to want to cut wordiness out of things like magazine articles and web pages.
I notice other things, too. In a recent issue of Maximum PC, someone who wrote an article twice used the phrase "throw the baby out with the bathwater." I don't think it means the same thing as this person thinks it means.
First, context. The article was discussing the new Microsoft DirectX graphics API. That's computer-speak that you don't need to worry about. The important part is that the article was discussing the fact that Microsoft is not building on the previous versions of this digital widget--it's just building a new version from scratch.
The author described this as "throw[ing] the baby out with the bathwater." From the context, the writer seems to think that basically means tossing everything out and starting over. I've always thought, though, that the phrase means something more like making a solution to a problem that is worse than the problem because you remove the point of the whole thing in the process. Sadly, as I write this, I have no internet access. (I'm in the Seattle's Best coffee shop on the corner of 2nd and Cherry in downtown Seattle, if you're interested.) I'll have to look it up.
In the mean time, am I the only one who thinks of these things as I read? Am I the only person who wants to fix all these things? I don't know exactly what law school has done to me, but this seems to be part of it.
Maybe once I'm in practice and I can cut down my hours from 14 per day 7 days per week to a more-reasonable 10 hours a day for 5 days per week. That should help.
