ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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.

that's kind of why I think this needs its own thread! Make one (or I will, just not right now).

Bulleted lists are my default method of written comms which is my default method of any comms tbh

Figured this was always a 4chan thing.

http://i.imgur.com/6XqjK1F.png

Why and how have they become so dominant?

1. hyper-mediated etc etc of teh innernet age levels all things to equal importance, destroys everyone's ability to assert or discern relative importances

2. proportion of total communications seeking to induce others to comply at all-time high, compliance generally requires actionable sequential task formulations

3. fear of being ignored

5 important questions YOU should be asking about bulleted lists

I think, write, and speak in paragraphs containing long convoluted sentences that (through no premeditation of mine) tend to include a lot of parenthetical digressions and dependent clauses that follow my (somewhat scattered) train of thought; this leads me to write things that are not clear to people who are not me, so even in a breezy and informal context (like ILX) I frequently have to remind myself to stop and break it up into manageable chunks before hitting "submit post."

See above. To me, bullets are not syntactically different from a series presented in sentence form. They may be overused in ppt but in a lot of situations they're easier to read at a glance, and use in practical ways.

Things like "Dear husband, please pick up bread, milk, cat food (not the smelly kind), the kind of orange juice that I like, both kinds of bagel, some broccoli, and lots of wine" are better as bulleted lists.

I reserve numbered lists for lists in which the sequence is important and you might have cause to refer to a step by number.

Why and how have they become so dominant?

1. hyper-mediated etc etc of teh innernet age levels all things to equal importance, destroys everyone's ability to assert or discern relative importances

2. proportion of total communications seeking to induce others to comply at all-time high, compliance generally requires actionable sequential task formulations

3. fear of being ignored

this is otm
take it from someone who is frequently ignored

also there is status involved:
if you think, write, and speak in paragraphs containing long convoluted sentences that (through no premeditation of mine) tend to include a lot of parenthetical digressions and dependent clauses that follow my (somewhat scattered) train of thought and you are me, you WILL be ignored
the only way to communicate effectively is through premeditated/edited stark clarity
you need to have a very high status level to be convoluted/impenetrable and still have people pay attention to what you're saying; i do not have this
i bullet list almost every written communication that matters, including emails to friends whose time is limited
imo it's also polite/respectful not to bury your main points in a paragraph of digressions

the only way to communicate effectively is through premeditated/edited stark clarity

imo it's also polite/respectful not to bury your main points in a paragraph of digressions

This is:

- otm

and also

- otmfm

The only thing I can't abide is when people attach sentence-style punctuation to bulleted lists like

* Thing;
* Thing, thingy, thing; and
* Thing

* you

* people

Come on. A properly deployed semicolon in a bulleted list is a joy.