My lance is free
I thought I was a barnacle. They’d have to scrape me off the bottom of the journalism boat. As it turns out, I scraped myself off. The other night I …more
November 19th, 2012
Battling the but-comma
I’m the scourge of the but-comma. I delete it almost every time I see it. But others are slavishly devoted to it. Or as they might write: But, others are …more
November 15th, 2012
The wishes of the grieving
Every now and then I get an email asking, “Don’t you people edit the obituaries?” The answer is yes, we do. And no, we don’t. If you read a bylined …more
November 2nd, 2012
(Almost) all over but the voting
I’ve got election fatigue. Maybe you do, too. I’m ready for this political season to be over, but I will miss some of its goofs and glitches. Each of the …more
October 30th, 2012
From Time …
To get a break from sad Sandy coverage, I clicked on a story from Time.com. Got to this paragraph and stopped to blog it. What’s wrong here? (I’ll update with …more
October 25th, 2012
Not quite a picture of perfection
It’s hard sometimes to stop being a copy editor when reading for pleasure. My colleague George Newman had one of those copy editing moments when he was reading “Pictures of …more
October 16th, 2012
A clergyman, a Motown group and a ruffed grouse walk into a bar …
A copy editor I know experienced one of those gut-dropping, cold sweat moments of journalistic misery. She came across the designation “Rt. Rev.” as a title before the name of …more
October 2nd, 2012
“Went missing” is here to stay
The phrase “went missing” is an abomination, some say. It’s slangy. It’s sloppy. It’s just not right. “Couldn’t you phrase it differently?” one caller pleaded earlier this year, after our …more
September 13th, 2012
A linguist responds: Guest column from Daniel Midgley
Yesterday I posted a column that leads with the tale of an email conversation I had with a linguist from Perth, Australia. His name is Daniel Midgley, and I sent …more
September 12th, 2012
Rx: No B.S.
Soon after I started the Red Pen last year, I wrote a column blithely declaring myself a prescriptivist. I’m a copy editor, I said, and copy editors are supposed to …more
