A tic is cousin to a cliché. They’re those little things you do in writing that you don’t even notice, but that make an editor think, “He’s at it again.”

I have my own tics. At the moment, I’m on a strict diet for “a lot.” I really enjoy saying “a lot of times” or “lots of people.” My Primary Rescue Person has just said, “No more for you, buster!” I used one anyway in the latest section of the book I’m working on, and now am not allowed to say “a lot” again for the rest of the book.

It’s easy to catch such things in other people’s writing. I work with a good writer whose tic is the unnecessary “of” with expressions of time or quantity. She can’t write “all the time.” It has to be “all of the time.” It’s “all of the elements” instead of just “all elements.” In the last few months I’ve excised a couple pages (not a couple of pages) of useless “ofs” from her copy. She could learn, but she’s busy and writes fast. She knows I’ll do the surgery.

I can think of only one writer who took the trouble to do something about his tics and habitual errors. He was the pastor of a tiny church and was writing its “discipline.” He wanted it to be perfect in the sight of God and the congregation, so I not only corrected his missteps but explained each one to him. He almost never made the same one twice—he told me he set his computer to watch for most of them. Once the job was done, I never saw him again—but I expect to meet him in Editorial Heaven.

Please note the excess of dashes in the preceding. They’re another tic of mine (along with parentheses). But Janet the Grammar Guerrilla cut down the number greatly by writing me a note once that said, in part: “I’ve noticed—that you have been using more than your—in fact more than humanity’s—share of dashes lately. The practice has gotten out—way out—of hand.”

At least she didn’t say that I used dashes a lot.

When my Primary Rescue Person cracked down on overuse of “a lot,” I took drastic action and programmed the auto-correct function on my computer, so that whenever I tried to type those two little words or a variation, I got *&$*%#@* instead. So now, Rescue Person, I can’t write *&$*%#@* or even *&$*%#@* anymore even if I want to. Thanks *&$*%#@*.