IN a sense, editors of business and journalistic prose are in the same league as medical doctors, surgeons, dentists, and chiropractors who treat ailing patients, excise diseased body tissue, straighten fractured bones and limbs, or extract rotten teeth and fill up ugly cavities.

The only difference is in what they perform for their clients. Medical and health-care practitioners work to restore their patient's health and well-being; editors work on masses of thought that have congealed into words and strings of sentences. With luck they could be turned into cleart, well-functioning expositions by just compacting occasional loose prose fiber, but at times they could be so mixed up and obtuse as to defy the act of editing itself.