Any experienced ME will tell you that every copy editor leaves their own fingerprints: a preferred sentence construction, a specific way of handling commas, and so on. Every copy editor also reaches for favourite words, which in my case include encompass, purview, especially, posit, and regarding. I can’t help myself. I simply think they sound better and have a cadence that helps the text flow along. I can think of only two words that make my gorge rise when I encounter them: learnings is one, and the other is particularly. Learnings is a cruel reminder that I’m stuck inside a self-help book, or a business book, or a business self-help book. I’ve never enjoyed those. And it amazes me how many authors reach for particularly when especially would work just as well. Especially is a Margo Timmins lament, particularly is Beastie Boys. Especially is a smooth four-lane road, particularly is a pot-holed track. Especially wafts you gently ahead to the next word. Particularly is, well, by turns explosive (par) and stabbing (tic) and has more syllables than is necessary to serve its purpose. By the time you’ve finished dodging your way past particularly, you’re likely to have lost some touch with the word that preceded it. I hope you grasp that point as an observation about cadences.
Authors have their favourite words too, of course. Those lists are very individualistic, so a CE watches out for them to make sure they aren’t overdone. It is best not to mess with them more than you have to (to avoid repetition). So, if the author prefers towards to toward, then towards it will be, by hang, no matter what the style sheet says. (Toward/s shouldn’t be on a style sheet in the first place, according to Oxford, which declares that one is a variation of the other and doesn’t differentiate British from American spelling.)
SIDEBAR
Beastie Boys? The Beastie Boys? No one pays a CE to guess. On the Web, the name isn’t stable. Wikipedia is wonderful for a lot of things, but if it’s the first website you go to for spellings and dates and so on, it should not be the last. If any person or group or organization has an official website, you need to go with that. So, Wiki says no The, and it turns out they’re right this time – no The on the official Beastie Boys website either. BTW, pop music mscripts can be a nightmare because of all the fan boys and girls out there. They tend to get loud about things like that. Is it “Sympathy for the Devil” or “Sympathy For The Devil”? Wiki says the first one, YouTube says the second. The Rolling Stones official website doesn’t tell you anywhere. In cases like that – i.e., fraught ones – you’re a copy editor aren’t you? You’re supposed to worry about these things – it’s probably best to just pick a comprehensive music website (at this desk, it’s Discogs) and treat it like your Bible for the spellings like that. And they’ve got “Sympathy For The Devil.” Great song.