But Is It “Wrong”?
One of the primal joys in life is to do good work. When the suit fits, the accounts balance, or the pie crust is flakey, someone takes pride in it. In editing, it feels good to make corrections, tidy things up,…
Writer, Editor, Helper
(The Subversive Copy Editor)
Writer, Editor, Helper
(The Subversive Copy Editor)
Category Sticklers
3 Rookie Goofs You Can Stop Making Right Now
Some lessons are harder to learn than others. Unfortunately for new copyeditors, sometimes the only way to recognize bad habits is to get slammed a few times by writers pushing back or by supervisors writing stet all over the copy. So let…
Are You a Grammar Troll?
For years, it seems, it’s been impossible to find a language-related post or article online without a stickler making trouble in the comments section. Even on political, social, and retail sites, outraged commenters love to point out a misplaced apostrophe…
But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”?
Q. Is it “happy medium” or “happy median”? My author writes: “We would all be much better served as stewards of finite public funds if we could find that happy median where trust reigns supreme.” But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”? is a new book from the folks who bring you The Chicago Manual of Style: a collection from our monthly online style Q&A.
The Editor’s Toughest Challenge
In my view, the most regrettable copyediting disasters come in the form of errors introduced by the editor. Letting a writer’s original mistake survive is certainly cause for regret, but nothing’s worse than knowing that the work was correct until…
Do You Follow Grammar “Rules” You Don’t Understand?
Those of you who use social media are used to seeing comments from sticklers who object to any deviation from the grammar rules they learned. The following sentences would not likely pass their inspection. Can you tell why?
Sentence 1. At the donut shop she had trouble getting her order out.
Sentence 2. Hopefully, none of the donuts are gone.
Sentence 3. But etiquette forced me to share the donuts.
Wannabe Editors: Can You Pass a Proofreading Test?
When my office hires at the entry level, there’s a proofreading and copyediting test, and for various reasons we give the test in person and on paper: It levels the playing field by eliminating access to e-mail and online sources. It shows us how a person will mark up copy on the job (a frequent chore for the new kid). It isolates proofing and editing skills from word-processing skills. Results vary.
How Sticklers Give Copyediting a Bad Name
Public sticklers have annoyed me forever, and I’ve been meaning to write about that, but recently, in a post titled “Editors, Would You Do Me This Tiny Favour?” Katy McDevitt at PublishEd Adelaide did a great job of it herself. McDevitt gets to the meat of it in point 3:
Going Up? Plan Ahead
A few months ago I encountered a bank of hotel elevators that made a big impression on me. This might be old hat to you,* but to me it was a wondrous invention: there were no buttons inside the elevators for choosing your floor. Instead,
On Being Offended by Language
This video from Stephen Fry isn’t new, but I somehow missed seeing it, and I’m guessing many of you might have as well. It expresses everything I believe about how editors might best respond to grammar and usage “out in the world” when it departs from the norms we follow in formal contexts. I could never say it as well as Fry does, so I’ll let him guest-post here today.