Q. I have a moral dilemma. I’m a contract editor for a consulting company whose client is a federal agency. Recently I recast the phrase “on which it depends” to “which it depends on.” An agency reviewer reversed my edit and commented “horrible grammar!” I want to keep my client and their client happy, but I also don’t want to compromise good editing principles. I quoted CMOS 5.186 to my client but got no response. How far should a diligent editor pursue an issue such as this?
A. Put your mind at rest. As an editor, you’ve done your job; the client gets the last word in matters that are negotiable. (After all, the original is not incorrect.) Second, even though the client didn’t reply, it’s likely that the strong wording of paragraph 5.186 had some effect. (“The traditional caveat of yesteryear against ending sentences or clauses with prepositions is an unnecessary and pedantic restriction. . . . The ‘rule’ prohibiting terminal prepositions was an ill-founded superstition based on a false analogy to Latin grammar.”) The next time the issue arises, your clued-in client might not object to being edited.