User:Laodah/around

(Note: I've used Giraffedata's comprised-of essay as a template in many of the following sections; hence the similarities, up to and including outright plagiarism.)

The correctness problem

Many people do not accept the lazy around as valid English usage in any context. Their argument is that "around", which means "encircling", "in the vicinity of", or "approximately", can only be associated with a verb that doesn't require a precise object. Witness: "The festivities take place around the neighbourhood." Were we to pair that "around" with a concrete verb (x "The festivities are based around the neighbourhood"), we'd have gibberish.

The phrase apparently originated as a means to soften the writer's point. It thus joins the ranks of other weasel words (basically, hopefully, generally, and many others) that writers use to obscure the thrust of their lines, and so -- they hope, perhaps subconsciously -- avoid criticism. By saying that x "The 12th Precinct is based around the Magnolia neighbourhood", the writer hopes to "weasel" out of criticisms that some parts of that precinct are in fact in other neighbourhoods. Yet the metaphor is illogical; a thing rests on its base; less directly, its base may be in some specified location. But nothing is ever based around another thing; the concept of "base" is precise and indivisible.

Nevertheless, misuses of around are common. Some users are respected writers. Even more are respected speakers, such as radio hosts, TV journalists, and public figures. (For a real-world example of a writer repeatedly abusing "around" to avoid troublesome effort, click here.)

Here is my view of why the lazy around is poor writing:

• It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer really means. Misuse of "around" adds nothing to the language.
• It's illogical. As a metaphor, "around" must pass the real-world test. Yet nothing is based or centred around anything in the real world; nor can an idea be around something, or a document written around something, unless that thing is in the middle of the page. Therefore, the lazy around represents a mixed metaphor at best, and a misdirection at worst.
• It obfuscates the point. By muddling the identity of objects and the direction of verbs, the writer who uses the lazy around abandons responsibility for understanding his or her point to the reader. (Thus the qualifier "lazy".)
• It's new. No grammatical or style authorities endorse this use of "around", and in fact it was rare before the current generation.
• It impoverishes the English language. By replacing more precise expressions, it reduces our power of description to, essentially, "well, you know..."
• Because it frequently represents a mixture of technical verbs (based, centred) and the passive voice (x "this programme is centred around vintage code"), the lazy around is often a symptom of "writing up", that is, an attempt to sound authoritative. As an old writers' maxim has it, the best way to sound authoritative is to write like an authority. The lazy around actually accomplishes the opposite: by siphoning off precision, it leaves the author looking less authoritative.

Is the lazy around regional?

I edit the lazy around across Wikipedia, and find it widespread throughout Anglophonia. Interestingly, it seems most prevalent in Australia and England (though in neither is it considered correct). Why this might be, is an interesting question. In my experience, Americans tend to view the problem of poor English as worse in their country than overseas, but my Wikipedia activities suggest that the United States are in fact in the second tier of lazy-around offenders, alongside Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, India, Jamaica, and all other English-speaking nations.

The archaeological record

Google Books' Ngram viewer provides fascinating insight into the origin and history of the expression "based around". Witness this chart of instances found in Google Books published since 1800.

As the data show, this grammatical error crawls along the edge of nonexistence for almost 150 years; in fact, it barely registers at all. Then about 1940 it raises its head ever so slightly, and progresses in this crouched posture through the next 20 years. Finally, in the late 60s, it abruptly cranks itself skyward and shoots into the stratosphere like a Saturn 5 rocket. (Coïncidence? You decide.) Over the subsequent 30 years, "based around" continues blasting upward on the near-vertical, until by 2000 (the upper limit of the statistical sample), it nearly smashes the graph's ceiling.

Discrete analysis of British and American publications renders substantially identical trajectories. Sadly, Ngrams doesn't offer an Australian filter, but we may assume the history of "based around" there, and across the rest of Anglophonia, is similar. It's also reasonable to assume that it mirrors the sordid career of the entire lazy around phenomenon, though a detailed investigation might reveal significant generalisation in recent decades.

Checking in with fellow wikignome Giraffedata, I learn that Ngrams of "comprised of" (his target error) are largely interchangeable with those of "based around".

Apparently, the English language suffered some cataclysmic indignity in or around 1968. Interestingly, it was not technology-related; television would have produced the upsurge in the 50s; the Internet, the 90s.

As there was no mass-media paradigm shift in the late 60s, that era's violent rise in vague elocution appears to be driven by a global shift in priorities across the English-speaking world.

Simply put, the generations before Woodstock were careful to preserve the integrity of formal English by judicious editing, at minimum, and possibly, dare we hope, precise thinking. (However, their informal English was as ingenious and disastrous as ours.) By contrast, the Woodstock generation and its descendants have been measurably less devoted to clear argument. How this may relate to deeper cultural values, one dreads to speculate.

As a final affront, neither the Australians nor the English, nor indeed the Americans, may defensibly be singled out for blame. Thus are we all deprived of our favourite villains.

Arguments in favour of the lazy around

Elegant variation

Elegant variation is the idea of using multiple phrasings for the same concept when writing to avoid tiring the reader with repetition. Sports announcers are famous for this, coining dozens of synonyms for "beat" as they run down the latest scores. So the lazy around can be a useful variation in a paragraph that already uses all the alternatives. This argument is inapplicable, though, in an encyclopedia -- such as Wikipedia -- where clarity is more important than euphony. Where clarity is important, it is important to use consistent terminology.

Efficiency

The very laziness of the lazy around could be viewed as an advantage. The lazy around can get you to the period faster than other rhetorical devices, simply because it replaces virtually every other preposition and adverb in the language. Witness: "We need to talk around ideas around medical care, and the concerns around the costs around hospitalisation and what happens around insurance policies that aren't around long stays." That's a lampshade, of course, but radio interviewers in our day often sound rather like that. Theoretically, if a person became fluent in the lazy around, a lot of cerebral effort could be given to other tasks. (For the writer or speaker, that is; the same technique greatly increases the effort required of the reader/listener.)

Unique meaning

Some might contend that the lazy around conveys a concept that can't be expressed in better English. For example, in the phrase (found on Wikipedia), x "jazz musicians based around British jazz-rock bands of the 60s", an argument might run that replacing the lazy around with "drawn from" would be too concrete, since some of the musicians might not have been members of actual bands. Yet the problem can easily be resolved in more precise language by rewriting the phrase, e.g., "jazz musicians drawn from the British jazz-rock scene in the 1960s", or simply, "British jazz-rock musicians of the 1960s."

More concise

As the above demonstrates, editing out the lazy around occasionally entails a total rewrite of the sentence, and sometimes the new sentence is longer or more complex than the original. (Again, this goes to the laziness issue, which could be construed as a labour-saving advantage.) However, since concision is of little value if it doesn't convey the point, and the primary effect of the lazy around is to obscure the point, this is a self-defeating choice. (It's also worth mentioning that, as a common symptom of "writing up", the lazy around is very often a feature of over-written sentences; statistically, more articles have fewer characters after I edit them than more.)

Rebuttal arguments

The lazy around has yet to draw the concentrated attention of grammar authorities, and this fact may lead some to conclude that "the absence of law is licence". However, a cursory examination of the facts demonstrates that the lazy around is in fact bad grammar, whether or not a formal ruling has yet been handed down. "Around" has a well-defined, long-established meaning. When that meaning is made to conflict with other well-defined concepts (base, centre), or is simply inaccurate (as when "around" displaces "about" in instances such as x "they made a comedy around dog shows"), it's inarguably in error. Garrison Keillor once said, "It's hard to resist the ridiculous. About all you can do is say, 'This is ridiculous'." The lazy around is ridiculous.

The prevalence argument -- that so many people use the lazy around that it's become correct by default -- is similarly premature; grammar isn't determined by vote. It's true that other errors that are just as beyond the pale have received benediction of late (c.f. the elimination of the English subjunctive), but ubiquity-over-logic arguments are rarely successful, despite what linguistic libertarians would have us believe. Case in point: many people write "could of", yet this expression has never been pinocchioed and is unlikely to be. And few would argue that it's a Wikipedia-worthy synonym for "could have".

Pointlessness of caring about it

Arguments against editing the lazy around out of Wikipedia on the grounds that it will not erase it from the language, make people stop using it, or prevent its eventual acceptance as correct English, are similarly irrelevant. As the goal is to raise the profile of Wikipedia -- and the lazy around will never be good style regardless of any status change that may come down a century from now, for all the reasons cited above -- we are still well to avoid it. (Compare the split infinitive, which, though now recognised as grammatically acceptable, remains weak style. I don't edit split infinitives out of Wikipedia, since they aren't technically incorrect and that's my benchmark, but they reduce the authority of those editors who use them, regardless of legality.)

Other commentators

Though the lazy around is of recent coinage, it has spread wide in its short lifetime. Formal stylebooks have yet to catch up with it, and participants in some writers' fora use it liberally, even in subject headings. Nevertheless:

Maeve Maddox of Dailywritingtips.com, says:

"Used as a noun, a 'base' is a foundation. Building on this meaning, the verb 'to base' can have the following meanings:

• to make or form a foundation for something
• to serve as a base for something
• to establish or maintain a base for something
• to use as a base or basis for something

Something can be based on something, but to say that something is based around something makes no sense."

Paul Brians in his book Common Errors In English Usage says:

"You can build a structure around a center, but bases go on the bottom of things, so you can’t base something around something else."

Says user WLseattle at Write.com, in part:

"Adding prepositions such as 'around' [to the verb 'to base'] would alter the meaning depending on what other words the preposition is linking to. The phrase 'based on' is the more common term and is also the only one that is grammatically correct. The phrase 'based around' would seldom be correct, since a base is by nature at the very bottom - therefore, something cannot technically be 'based around' anything else."

Opines user Hannah Rice Myers, in the same discussion:

"... you must look at the word 'base' and its definition. It is the part on which something rests; the lowest part of something. So grammatically, you cannot base something around anything. It is just as impossible to base something 'off of' anything. Now you can base something on something else. Out of your three choices, this is the only one that makes any sense, and the only one that is grammatically correct as well."

A search of "based around" at the Encyclopedia Britannica netted a disappointing 187 hits; however "based on" brought up full 13000. So many more, in fact, that we may comfortably assume that, like the editorial community in general, Britannica style-setters simply haven't turned their attention yet to the lazy around. (Hunting down more esoteric misuses of "around" via boolean search is more problematic, therefore the experiment was limited to this most common case.)

To date no clearly-stated positive votes have come to this user's notice. However, truth would be ill-served by a failure to cite the many, many writers' fora whose users rely heavily on the lazy around in their work. Just two examples:

• An 11 May 2013 post on Reference For Writers, entitled How To Make A Story Based Around A Character
• A 19 January 2015 post on Writing Forums (sic) entitled Writing A Story Based Around Philosophies

Wikipedia policy

Wikipedia does not have a policy or guideline on grammar or literary style. People sometimes say there should be one, and some state a related opinion that until there is, nobody should police grammar on Wikipedia. But that isn't how our service works. A Wikipedia article gets its grammar and style from the same source as its facts: the editing public. Each editor applies his own judgment in adding material, and in reviewing and modifying existing material. Disputes sometimes develop, and there are procedures for dealing with those. In general, an article ends up reading the way the majority of people who care want it to read. Even spelling is crowdsourced on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia does have a style manual, but it focuses on technical presentation - things like punctuation. Because more traditional publications do have style manuals that dictate grammar and word usage, people sometimes propose additions to Wikipedia's to do the same. To date, those proposals have always been rejected.

How I edit

I search Wikipedia articles for quoted phrases -- "based around", "centred around", "articles around", and the like -- using Wikipedia search. The number of pages I edit this way per week varies according to the time I have to give it and my level of interest.

In any case, the actual editing is an intellectual process. I read the sentence and paragraph, understand what's being said, and choose a grammatically-correct synonym. Occasionally I fix a few other things while I'm up. (Some lines containing an around-based error are so freighted with ambiguity or other bad grammar that replacing the lazy around alone doesn't render clearer copy.) Any text I contribute conforms to the standard already in place, whether Global or American English. When I save the final draught, I typically leave one of two messages, either:

• "Resolved a disputed usage of 'around'. Cheers."

or

• "Resolved disputed usages of 'around'. Cheers."
  

If I've done any other work, I mention that as well.

As always on Wikipedia, anyone is free to rewrite my rewrite, as long as the new text is as grammatical (or better!) and doesn't compromise the accuracy of the article.

Please note that I do not edit the lazy around (or anything else) on Talk pages, private User pages, or when it occurs in a quoted passage.

Challenges of editing the lazy around on Wikipedia

Because writers use the lazy around specifically to avoid explaining a point, it can be difficult to know what to write in its place. What does he or she mean by x "The publication is based around the larger Clash brand"? Is it published under the Clash brand? Is it run by the same company, but not as a Clash product? Is it inspired by Clash products, but published by another company? For the copy editor, making this line actually say something is fraught with peril; what if the edit isn't factually accurate?

And it gets worse. x "The song [...] was based around acoustic guitar." Was this a coffee-house deal, with just the singer and his six-string? Was it an otherwise fully-arranged song, but with acoustic guitars where one expects electrics? Did they start with acoustic guitar in the composing process, and build from there? The default fix ("based on") doesn't resolve the problem here; to get a sentence that informs the reader, you have to throw out the whole thing and start over. But what exactly is the information?

Even when the intent is clear, the lazy around often so abbreviates the facts that the line has to be taken apart and reassembled from the ground up -- and sometimes those surrounding it as well. Consider x "[The album's] concept is based around the stories of Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis." Though the very brief article in which this sentence occurred doesn't specify that its subject is a "concept album", other lines, along with the word "concept", suggest that it is. Therefore "concept" had to remain in the edit. (Note that a concept can't really be based on -- to say nothing of around -- something else; "concept" is itself a basal, uh, concept.) At length, I settled for this: "A concept album, it was inspired by the stories of Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis."

Perhaps predictably, some articles that contain the lazy around are deeply muddled in general, and one is tempted to rewrite the whole thing from start to finish. I may fix other typos and grammatical errors that clang. ("Based off" is one I find hard to leave, though I sometimes do.) But for the most part, the motto of the surgical grammar gnome is "Resist Mission Creep".

Rewards of editing the lazy around on Wikipedia

Surgical gnoming is surprisingly fun. There's the evident satisfaction of a well-written (or re-written) line, and of making our service better in a small but persistent way. It also sharpens me as a writer. Not only do I now have a full range of "connexion" words and phrases at my fingertips, thanks to constant use, but editing muddy language sharpens my own thinking.

My restraint muscles also get a work-out; many "arounds" are borderline, not so much lazy as under-motivated, and the process of analysing those cases, and convincing myself to stand down when called-for, makes me a more effective editor. (And probably a better person.)

On a related note, there is nothing like the thrill of wading into an entry that has ten "arounds", and every one legitimate. (Seriously, I see a lot of abused "arounds".) And the delectable "oh, snap!" moment when I encounter something I'm that sure is wrong, but -- oh, snap! -- I'm the one who's wrong. (High-five to the many conscientious and articulate Wikipedians out there; you make this improbable thing work.)

But the best thing about this hobby is that it takes me to every corner of Wikipedia. In the course of an evening's shooting I'll read on every imaginable topic: satellite technology, Indian cinema, Japanese computer games, Australian-rules football, the Bulgarian army, Canadian First Nations, Bolivian agriculture, West African religion, English railways... in an hour I'll have been all over the world. Sometimes I land on something I know and love -- a town I lived in, a favourite musician, an historical event I've studied in depth. Which is its own kind of thrill, after days among the new and exotic.

And finally, there's the thanks I receive. They're not particularly numerous -- silence is the most common response -- but they handily outnumber reversions, and I get one or two in a typical week. Since Wikipedia doesn't have a "no problem" button, I'll have to make do with this:

"Pleased to be of service, brothers and sisters. Let us continue together to hurl back the forces of ignorance."

Reversion

There are a small number of articles that are effectively squatted by a single editor who takes personal offense at someone exercising co-ownership of "his" or "her" article, and performs a territorial reversion. NOTE: BOTH ARTICLE OWNERSHIP AND MINDLESS REVERSION ARE FORBIDDEN BY WIKIPEDIA. However, as my primary aim is to preserve Wikipedia's policy-mandated encyclopedic tone, and secondarily to educate those who don't realise they're using bad grammar, I concentrate on unwatched articles (the vast majority) and those watched by editors who are pleased to improve their skills (the majority of the remainder). When (rarely) an editor reverts my edit (that is, restores the article to its previous non-encyclopedic state), I place the URL in question on a list of reverted articles. Those articles are not revisited for at least six months, unless by accident.

Articles that are simply rewritten after my visit, because someone doesn't like my word choice, are not scheduled for a revisit, unless the new version contains the lazy around.

The Red-Green Principle

Some Wikipedians object to grammar gnoming on the grounds that the disputed wording (the lazy around, comprised of, misuse of "to beg the question", misspelling the verb "to pore" in "they pored over the problem", etc.) isn't incorrect by their reckoning. While they are of course free to disagree, they are not free to revert the correction on those grounds. The Wikipedia standard is correctness; unless the substituted text is incorrect, regardless of the correctness of the previous text, IT MAY NOT BE REVERTED. (It can of course be rewritten, as long as the grammar and information in the new text are undisputed.) For example:

Case 1.

Imagine the Wikipedia entry for Christmas contained the following line:

"The traditional colours of Christmas are red and green."

Now imagine someone rewrote that sentence to read:

"The traditional colours of Christmas are green and red."

Revertable? Nope. The new text is as undisputed as the old.

Case 2.

Imagine a Wikipedian intervened in the above example and rewrote the amended line to read:

"The traditional colours of Christmas are green and redd."

A redd-hunting grammar gnome stops by and reverts to the previous version, whereupon her reddist colleague erupts in indignation, posting a cataract of research on the Talk page purporting that "redd" is an acceptable alternative for "red". May the reddist now counter-revert?

Nope. Don't make one lebenty-lebenth of a difference. "Red" is the least disputed of the two usages. Wikipedia guidelines posit consensus, meaning that the least disputed usage, forensic gymnastics notwithstanding, is style.

To drive this proposition home: "based around" is style somewhere; "based on" is style everywhere.

Does editing the lazy around constitute vandalism?

No. Wikipedia's vandalism policy reads, in part:

Some material—sometimes even factually correct material—does not belong on Wikipedia, and removing it is not vandalism. Check to make sure that the removal was in line with Wikipedia standards, before restoring it or reporting its removal as vandalism.

One of the materials that "does not belong" on Wikipedia is questionable grammar. Wikipedia administrators have repeatedly found that standard usage and good style are part of "consensus", a central component of the standard for inclusion in this service. Some people take correction of their grammar personally. (They shouldn't; it's how our skills improve.) There have even been cases of vengeful users following grammar editors around, systematically reverting all of their edits. These users have drawn disciplinary action from administrators for -- you guessed it -- vandalism.

Bottom line: editing the lazy around, or any other point of grammar, on Wikipedia does not constitute an attack. But reverting such edits does.

Locating the lazy around by boolean search

Given that the lazy around is by definition a universal link around all actions and objects, and all substantives and qualifiers, around the English language, the contexts around which it appears are virtually infinite. This can make boolean searches around it, and editing around it, particularly difficult.

The following is only a partial list around instances around the lazy around that I have encountered around my activities around Wikipedia. (Note: not all of these strings necessarily imply an error; for example, many instances around "mostly around" are perfectly grammatical, i.e., "Euglenozoa are unicellular, mostly around 15-40 µm in size." However, some are around: x "...the politics of Oregon is centered mostly around regional concerns". The task of the editor is based around individual occurrences and determining whether an edit is called-for.)

• base/based/basing around
• centre/centres/centred/centring around; center/centers/centered/centering around
• centralise/centralises/centralised/centralising/centralisation around; centralize/centralizes/centralized/centralizing/centralization around
• hinge/hinges/hinged/hinging around
• pattern/patterned/patterning/patterns around
• movie/movies around
• film/films around
• script/scripts around
• story/stories around
• allegation/allegations around
• accusation/accusations around
• honesty around
• knowledge around
• awareness around
• consciousness around
• truth/truths around
• fact/facts around
• momentum around
• action/actions around
• improvisation around
• transparency around
• change/changes/changing/changed around
• law/laws/legislated/legislating/legislation around
• network/networks/networking/networked around
• set around
• charge/charges around
• history/histories around
• research around
• study/studies around
• account/accounts around
• anecdote/anecdotes around
• plot/plots around
• tale/tales around
• legend/legends around
• myth/myths around
• joke/jokes around
• gag/gags around
• write/writes/wrote/written/writing around
• routine/routines around
• show/shows around
• documentary/documentaries around
• drama/dramas around
• comedy/comedies around
• song/songs around
• poem/poems around
• epic/epics around
• book/books around
• brochure/brochures around
• pamphlet/pamphlets around
• broadside/broadsides around
• article/articles around
• headline/headlines around
• piece/pieces around
• composition/compositions around
• conversation/conversations around
• dedicated/dedication around
• determination around
• passion around
• excitement around
• plan/plans around
• law/laws around
• legislation around
• rule/rules/rulings around
• finding/findings around
• regulation around
• policy/policies around
• politics/around
• propaganda around
• news around
• information around
• report/reports around
• problem/problems around
• difficulty/difficulties around
• challenge/challenges around
• idea/ideas around
• belief/beliefs around
• view/views around
• opinion/opinions around
• prejudice/prejudices around
• persecution around
• superstition/superstitions around
• hate/hatred around
• bigotry/bigotries around
• discrimination around
• tolerance/intolerance around
• injustice/injustices around
• fairness/unfairness around
• notion/notions around
• concept/concepts around
• theory/theories around
• motif/motifs around
• theme/themes around
• lie/lies around
• project/projects around
• discussion/discussions around
• argument/arguments around
• unhappiness around
• fight/fights/fighting around
• debate/debates around
• disagreement/disagreements around
• complaint/complaints around
• criticism/criticisms around
• responsibility/responsibilities around
• authority/authorities around
• protest/protests around
• revolt/revolts/revolting/revolted/revolution around
• rebel/rebels/rebelling/rebelled/rebellion around
• controversy/controversies around
• education around
• teaching/teachings around
• sadness around
• anger around
• pain around
• rage around
• fear/fears around
• panic/panics/panicked/panicking around
• indignation around
• outrage around
• tension/tensions around
• worry/worries/worrying around
• anxiety/anxieties around
• nerves/nervous/nervousness around
• stress around
• focus/focussing/focussed/focusses/focusing/focused/focuses around
• circumstance/circumstances around
• topic/topics around
• subject/subjects around
• issue/issues around
• matter/matters around
• questions around
• uncertainty/uncertainties around
• confusion around
• doubt/doubts around
• joy around
• celebrate/celebrating/celebration/celebrations around
• praise around
• applause around
• happiness around
• guidance around
• advice around
• recommendations around

The following search strings mostly net instances of acceptable usage, but sometimes, as in x "the author of the paper wrote it around public policy", they sniff out an error:

• primarily around
• mostly around
• largely around
• often around
• sometimes around
• rarely around
• occasionally around
• it/him/her/them around
• this/that/these/those around

Real-world examples of the lazy around, with possible escapes

The following subsections catalogue selected specimens of the lazy around encountered on Wikipedia, and edits made. The cited alternatives are examples alone; they are neither definitive nor necessarily skilful.

Errors containing "based around"

x "Linux distribution, an operating system made as a collection of software based around the Linux kernel."
Here, "based around" can be resolved by simply changing it to "based on".

x "...the founders and owners [...] opened their first restaurants, based around a cooking device called an Insta-Broiler."
Alternative: "the original strategy of the founders and owners centered on a device called the Insta-Broiler."

x "Lego World Racers is a Lego theme based around a story of two racing teams who are competing to win the world cup."
Alternative: "Lego World Racers is a Lego theme in which two racing teams compete to win the world cup."

x "The area is based around agriculture and cattle raising."
Alternative: "The local economy is based on agriculture and cattle raising."

Errors containing "centred around"

x "The Kalem Club was a literary circle in New York centered around the American fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft."
Alternative: "The Kalem Club was a literary circle in New York that formed around the American fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft."

x "Country Squire Lakes was founded in 1973 by a property developer as a planned community centered around several artificial lakes."
Alternative: "Country Squire Lakes was founded in 1973 by a property developer as a planned community built around several artificial lakes."

Errors in which ineligible nouns are said to be "around" something

x "The game's storyline is around the movie."
Alternative: "The game's storyline is drawn from the movie."
(Better: "The game draws its storyline from the movie.")
(Best: "The game is based on the movie.")

x "The book [...] breaks up the action into short stories around central themes."
Alternative: "The book [...] breaks up the action into short stories on central themes."

x "Subjective coding is the indexing of documents around subjective data."
Alternative: "Subjective coding is the indexing of documents according to subjective data."

x "McCaffrey set eleven books around the Ninth Pass [...], two around the Sixth Pass [...], one around the Second, and two around the First."
Alternative: "McCaffrey set eleven books in the Ninth Pass [...], two in the Sixth Pass [...], one in the Second, and two in the First." (Note: "passes" are time periods.)

"Aw, snap!" Good arounds that showed up in search results as "must edit"

"A multi-narrative thriller that intertwines multiple stories around one particular incident..." (Chennaiyil Oru Naal) As the stories are being interwined around an incident, and not somehow "arounding" independently, this is excellent English.

"The earliest scripts occasionally wove stories around historic events... " (Abarenbō Shōgun) Again, we have scripts weaving stories around something; the stories themselves are not magically "around" all by themselves. What would make this sentence poor English? Remove the verb: x "The earliest scripts were around historic events."

"Scholars think, for instance, that the Golden Light Sutra constellated around the celebrated third chapter." (Buddhist texts) Conste-what?? According to Oxford Dictionaries: "Form or cause to form into a cluster or group; gather together." Deep bow to my colleague editor.

 "We are the little folk, we..."