To Boldly Split Infinitives
Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the first airing of Star Trek, so I thought it was a good opportunity to talk about split infinitives. (So did Merriam-Webster, which beat me to the punch.) If you’re unfamiliar with split infinitives or have thankfully managed to forget what they are since your high school days, it’s […]
Book Review: The Subversive Copy Editor
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the University of Chicago Press. I have a terrible editor confession:1You can choose to read that either as a terrible confession for an editor or as the confession of a terrible editor. until now, I had not read Carol Fisher Saller’s book The Subversive Copy […]
Whoa There
Recently, the freelance writer and film critic Eric Snider tweeted this: ME: It's 'whoa,' not 'woah.' It's not like 'yeah.' THE INTERNET: I don't know how to spell 'yeah' either. — Eric D. Snider (@EricDSnider) August 3, 2016 A few days later, a friend linked to this discussion thread on Goodreads started by sci-fi/fantasy author […]
Book Review: But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”?
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from the University of Chicago Press. I have to admit that I was a little skeptical when I heard that the University of Chicago Press was putting out a collection of questions and answers from the popular Chicago Style Q&A. What’s the point of having it […]
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Sorry, Merriam-Webster, but Hot Dogs Are Not Sandwiches
On the Friday before Memorial Day, Merriam-Webster sent out this tweet: Have a great #MemorialDayWeekend. The hot dog is a sandwich. https://t.co/KeNiTAxPAm — Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 27, 2016 They linked to this post describing ten different kinds of sandwiches and asserted that “yes, the hot dog is one of them.” They say, We know: the […]
Book Review: Perfect English Grammar
Disclosure: I received a free review PDF of this book from Callisto Media. Grant Barrett, cohost of the public radio program A Way with Words, recently published a book called Perfect English Grammar: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking. In it, Barrett sets out to help writers like himself who may not have […]
On a Collision Course with Reality
In a blog post last month, John McIntyre took the editors of the AP Stylebook to task for some of the bad rules they enforce. One of these was the notion that “two objects must be in motion to collide, that a moving object cannot collide with a stationary object.” That is, according to the […]
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ACES Presentation: Copyediting and Corpus Linguistics
On Saturday, I presented at the twentieth annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society, held in Portland, Oregon. My topic was “Copyediting and Corpus Linguistics”, and my aim was to give editors a crash course in using corpora to research usage questions. I was floored by the turnout—there were probably close to two hundred […]