Dear Geist,
Is it usual for an editor to change a writer's text so that some words are repeated several times? I wrote an article on feral dogs for an ecology magazine. The editor loved it and gave it a good placement and even sprang for a couple of professional photos. But I had gone to some trouble to
repeat dogs, dogs, dogs all through it, to avoid boring repetition. I went with homeless hounds, feral fidos, primitive pooches, etc.—a practice I learned as a journalism student, reinforced over ten years—and the editor changed them all back to “dogs.” It's my first eco article and the deadline was looming so I let it go. But it's bugging me. Any insights?

Dear Rosa,
We aren't sure where journalism schools stand on this now, but English usage guides are unanimous on thumbs-down to the “elegant variation,” the rewording of a term after the first mention, in order to avoid repeating it. In fact, the lexicographer Bryan Garner calls it the “inelegant variation,”
having morphed into a compliment some years after “elegant variation” came into use. Why is it frowned on? Because no two words for a thing have exactly the same meaning or connotation, so the practice tends to confuse readers and impede reading—the opposite of what writers and editors strive for.
Charles W. Morton (1899-1967), a writer, humorist and longtime associate editor at the
, once called the practice “the elongated yellow-fruit school of writing,” invoking an elegant variation of “banana.” His examples included “the succulent goober” (for peanut) and “the numbered spheroids” (for billiard balls).
—The Editors