The Onion Weighs In on Style Choice

From my newsletter that covers marketing and career building for writers--and, of course, that includes editing:

In the News:  Those of you who might think I overdo my mini rants about the difference between style choices and grammar rules a la The Frugal Editor (http://budurl.com/TheFrugalEditor) and Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips (http://budurl.com/WordtrippersPB) need to see this essay from the Onion. At least satire isn't dead or didn't get killed. http://www.theonion.com/articles/4-copy-editors-killed-in-ongoing-ap-style-chicago,30806/

 

To subscribe to my SharingwithWriters newsletter and receive a free e-copy of my booklet of word trippers, go to http://howtodoitfrugally.com. The sign-up window is in the upper right corner of most every page.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

None of Us Is an Always-Right Editor

June Casagrande, author of Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies published by Penguin (www.budurl.com/GrammarSnobs) lets Mitt Romney off the hook for typos on his Web site.  In her recent syndicated grammar column, "A Word Please" she reiterates her premise that we all make mistakes and that we're not always right ourselves and that, in fact, many of the most avid grammar cops don't know the difference between a grammar rule and a style choice. In this case, Romney (or his team) made at least three boo boos in a week. Two are obvious typos, the other probably a brain lapse when the text read "peak" for "peek." She also cops to her most recent goof. It was a little scrap word left in a sentence after she had edited it.

That only proves that none of us is perfect. I would add that we're all in this together. So, we are as careful as we can be. We enlist help from an editor (like my Mindy Philips Lawrence for my Sharing with Writers newsletter). We let one another know when it is an error that can be corrected. But in doing so, we don't take an official stance, for we, too, may be wrong.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

Editing Tips Everywhere!

Did you know The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition has a tip of the day? Here's a recent one:  In running text, "Spell out "United States" as a noun; reserve "US" for the adjective form only.—CMOS 16, 10.33"

If you "like" them on Facebook, the tip shows up in the morning on your feed.

I usually put at least one editing tip in my SharingwithWriters newsletter where you'll get lots of promotion resources, too. To subscribe send an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to HoJoNews (at) AOL (dot) com.






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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

Letting Your Blog Visitors Research Your Plurals (-:

Kathe Gogolewski (author of Tato and other books) is my writing friend (some of you know her, I'm sure). She left this note on my War. Peace. Tolerance blog this week. I thought you'd like to see it as this week's tip. It's really from Kathe by way of me, I guess. (-:

What we're really talking about here is how many things that used to be rules ( RULES writ large!) are now style choices. In The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, I talk about zero-tolerance rules to get our work past the gatekeepers. But more and more rules are soft. Still, that shouldn't make us lax.

Here is what Kathe found when researching my use of Iris vs. Irises in "How Iraq's Sand Is Like Iris -- Mother's Day 2008": As you'll see, even the explanations are a bit confusing! (-:

Kathe Gogolewski has left a new comment on your post "How Iraq's Sand Is Like Iris--Mother's Day 2008":

"And our young men and women in Iraq each deserve their own bouquet of Irises! (Incidentally, I had to look up the plural of "iris," because I noticed you did not use "irises." Turns out they are both in use today: "Iris" is used for both single and multiple plants of iris, and "irises" is used for multiple blossoms. I also read that "iris" can mean one plant or a collection of individual plants, and "irises" means a collection of groups of iris. Sounds like the English language, eh? There can be more than one interpretation! Once again, Carolyn, you got me hoppin'!"

Find Kathe at www.tri-studio.com.

Now, here's the surprise element. I only chose "Iris" as a plural rather than "Irises" because the length of the subject line for the blog was limited. Now, that's a very good reason to make one choice over another, don't you think? (-:

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits and consults on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.