ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Just use hyphens, burn the motherfucker down

the comma-dash

To reopen an ancient non-debate: why the fuck 'copy editor' but not 'proof reader'-- oh, hang on, I get it now: one who edits copy but not one who reads prooves.

('Prooves' only for an humorous effect, natch.)

Copy editor checks a story for facts, might call a source for clarification of a quote. Also proof reads.

Proof reader basically checks for spelling and grammar.

my version

Hamilton became a part-time office manager at Shasty. She still, however, had a career as a photographer. In addition to magazine and corporate work, she had an unusual sideline, which had grown out of a personal art project: she made commissioned portraits of women who, often for therapeutic, confidence-building reasons, wished to be photographed unclothed for the first time.

i don't like "made commissioned" - even though it's grammatically correct you've got two past tense verb forms right next to each other, and even once you get past that half your brain is like "commissioned.... by whom? the women themselves?" ANYWAY

I don't like the length of that third sentence to begin with, and the long parenthetical puts a lot of distance between "who" and "wished."

How about "...project. She photographed women who wished to be portrayed nude for the first time (often for therapeutic, confidence-building reasons).

Or "...project. She made portraits of women who wished to be portrayed nude for the first time (often for therapeutic, confidence-building reasons).

or "did portraits of women who wished to be photographed nude"

i can now sense eustace t gazing haughtily at us through his monocle as we busily unravel the utter new yorkerness, the expression at once compact and deferred

i think a colon is definitely called for, not a fan of breaking it into three sentences. mark s's is what i would go with

\o/

Hamilton became a part-time office manager at Shasty, but still had a career as a photographer. In addition to magazine and corporate work, she had a sideline, which had grown out of a personal art project: commissioned portraits of women who, often for therapeutic, confidence-building reasons, wished to be photographed unclothed for the first time.

<- my attempt. the first two sentences can be combined. and you can lose the "she made" without affecting the sense.

I think we should keep reworking this graf, returning to it every few days, like Picasso reworking Las Meninas

"It took ten years, but I think you'll agree it was worth waiting for."

To reopen an ancient non-debate: why the fuck 'copy editor' but not 'proof reader'-- oh, hang on, I get it now: one who edits copy but not one who reads prooves.

"Reading proofs" is exactly what proofreaders do!

I guess so, yeah. "Uncorrected prooves." Well, then, why is copy editor two words but proofreader one? That always bugged me.

Also: in this thread, many laffs. I wanted to EXCELSIOR some lol posts, but they were 10 years old.

I have moved in circles where some people believed a hyphen was best (copy-editor), others preferred it open (copy editor), and others preferred it closed (copyeditor). A standard anti-closer argument was "how many yedits have you copped?"

Everyone offered examples allegedly showing why their way was best, as though an argument from consistency should be dispositive (despite the arbitrary nature of the territory). Is a coworker someone who orks cows? Etc.

Meanwhile I'm all like "call it whatever you want as long as I keep getting paid."

I guess I had it in my head (not having thought too deeply about it) that proofreading was a type of reading (reading for proof?), rather than the proof being the thing what was being read.

As I recall, every dictionary & style guide I ever worked from was anti-hyphen, anti-close on copy editor.

This was the standard instructional text for most of my career, and even the cover design jokes about the persistence of the dispute.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41CRFYQH91L._SX312_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I'd split up copyeditor bcz it looks funny and gives you pause as you read. Proofreader doesn't.

If you demand a consistent rule from me, it's "close them up unless they look weird, in which case don't". Close them up bcz the more words we end up with the better.

"Does it look funny?" is an important heuristic IMO.

mark s otm.

It's like when in the 90s people would try to argue that "email" requires a hyphen because otherwise you might confuse it with the French word for "enamel."

Don't go too far down the rabbit hole of sophistry, y'all. Sometimes things just work (or don't work) for readers. And readers are what matters.

Copyeditors never looked funny to me - copy editors did - until I became one.

Writers often want spaces around their em dashes bcuz they read them as dashes. Which boggles my mind every time.

"As hyphens" Jesus I need more coffee

By default in Word, space hyphen space autocorrects to space en-dash space. Space hyphenhyphen space autocorrects to space em-dash space. Word hyphenhyphen word autocorrects to wordemdashword. Vastly prefer the last of these, but I will adapt to house preference when needed.

The latter is the only acceptable option in print - ilx is probably a little more laxworthy.

Dang *last

I'm so out of practice here

lol

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-correct-punctuation-of-donald-trump-jrs-name

The New Yorker is welcome to its conventions. They are ugly, but at least they are decipherable, so you may quickly put them behind you, like Satan.

I like the consonant-doubling rule.

You know, an easy way to avoid that particular punctuation traffic jam is to spell out "Junior."

donald trump fils

oh god, don't go there, because then the discussion moves to fils' vs fils's

basically this is the fault of anyone egotistical enough to name his son after himself

they should just print his name at half the point size

That would cause consistency problems. How, then, to style Henry VIII or John XXIII?

henry viii half the point size of his dad henry vii, john xxiii is unrelated to to john xxii (or any other pope except possibly the borgia popes, none of whom were called john, so the problem doesn't arise

a tremendously pedantic copyediting question: is it okay to have a citation broken up or is it 100% necessary for it to be all in one place? chicago style specifically here but maybe it's a more general thing. what i mean here is, could a note say:

"ned raggett says this. see _____ (london: routledge, 2006)"

or is it technically required to say:

"ned raggett says this. see ned raggett, _____ (london: routledge, 2006)"

the latter obviously seems redundant and repetitive, but what are style guides for if not messing up yr prose.

The latter. Inconsistency can confuse. Also because it's funny.

I think you could probably get away with

"According to Ned Raggett (London, Routledge, 2006), _________."

But that puts the boring information in between the salient bits, which would probably distract more than the repetition.

people put author-date references all over the place. you would only normally have "see [author]" in the end note/note cue rather than in the text itself, in which case it shouldn't be an issue.

I think I want to start a thread on the phenomenon of bulleted lists in correspondence. Why and how have they become so dominant? Is it really a better way of organizing thoughts and ideas? Is the threaded tweet an outgrowth of this, or a parallel evolution kind of thing? Should people start learning how and when to deploy the bulleted list as part of their normal language arts curriculum, as early as 7 or 8? Most importantly, does the use of bulleted lists produce better communication, leading to better choices, or is it part of the "cognitive style of powerpoint" as ridiculed and eviscerated by Edward Tufte?

Sorry let me try that again

I think I want to start a thread on the phenomenon of bulleted lists in correspondence.

• Why and how have they become so dominant?
• Is it really a better way of organizing thoughts and ideas?
• Is the threaded tweet an outgrowth of this, or a parallel evolution kind of thing?
• Should people start learning how and when to deploy the bulleted list as part of their normal language arts curriculum, as early as 7 or 8?
• Most importantly, does the use of bulleted lists produce better communication, leading to better choices, or is it part of the "cognitive style of powerpoint" as ridiculed and eviscerated by Edward Tufte?

As an ex-technical writer, I must say you have just illustrated a good use of a bulleted list in that:

• Each point pertained to the topic you introduced.
• Each point was relatively brief.
• Each point was cast as a question, giving them greater grammatical and logical coherence.
• The list itself was short, a mere five bullets, which also adds coherence.

I always knew we were family, somehow.

Oh jesus maybe we should just get on the horn and talk about it? People being paralyzed at the thought of making a quick call vs. spending 5x the time crafting the perfect bulleted list I mean come on my GOD.

Honestly, a person who can write a decent e-mail AND/OR text AND/OR can/WILL actually dial a phone number and talk to a person on the other end is becoming increasingly rare, IMO. Millennials or phone-talk-phobic others may think that's OK, but in 2017 there are plenty of professional situations in which talking on the goddamn phone is part of the job, DEAL.