‘Most writers I know have tales to tell of being mangled by
editors and mauled by fact-checkers, and naturally it is the
flagrant instances they choose to single out – absurdities,
outright distortions of meaning, glaring errors. But most of
the damage done is a good deal less spectacular. It consists of
small changes (usually too boring to describe to anyone else)
that flatten a writer’s style, slow down his argument, neutralise
his irony; that ruin the rhythm of a sentence or the balance
of paragraph; that deaden the tone that makes the music. I
sometimes think of the process as one of “desophistication”.’
—John Grimond.