Spot the Correction

 

Can you guess the edit I made to the following sentence?

According to the Humane Society of the United States, from 2012-13 an estimated 3 million to 4 million cats and dogs were adopted from shelters nationwide.

First off, let me say I was impressed that the writer put in the word “million” after “3.” When we speak, we say “three to four million.” But on paper, that could theoretically be construed to mean a range of single digit number, which means it could be any of 3,999,997 possible numbers. So it’s often good policy to just go ahead and write “3 million to 4 million.”

The change I made had nothing to do with that. The issue I thought needed fixing was “from 2012 13.” And it’s not just because I dislike dashes and hyphens in ranges. That is, when I see “The restaurant is open 3-5 p.m., I always change the dash or hyphen to “to,” just because I work in a world where real words are considered preferable to symbols standing in for words – at least in running text. It’s the same reason you’ll never see “The president & the senator met Tuesday.” In professional publishing, ampersands are not considered interchangeable with the word “and.” And because they’re shunned in publications that help set the standard for professional writing, they look unprofessional.

But 2012-13 is, in fact, appropriate form sometimes. When you’re talking about the 2012-13 school year, a lot of publications would have no problem writing it that way. There are a lot of other situations in which it might be appropriate, too. So that’s not why I changed it.

The real problem with “from 2012-13” is all about the “from.” The word “from” in this case requires a “to.” And not only was there no explicit “to” in the original wording. But there was when I was done with it:

... from 2012 to 2013 ...

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