copy editing | copy editing
Jul.03.2009
An LA Times story today reports:
"Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums. "
Now, back in my day, starry-eyed wannabe wordsmiths were taught that the the plural of "...
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Jul.01.2009
"it doesn't faze me" = 612,000 hits"it doesn't phase me" = 1,740,000 hits
Some of the latter are, no doubt, people explaining how to use the word "faze." But one appears to be a bona fide error by an AP writer that got past an AP editor then past a Charleston Daily...
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Jun.30.2009
I came across this comma usage in an AOL story today:
"Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California said during an April 22, 2009 hearing on credit card reform conducted by the U.S. House Financial Services Committee ..."
For over a decade now, I've been getting paid to stick commas into...
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Jun.25.2009
"A foreclosed home may be in need of major repairs."
... changed to ...
"A foreclosed home may need major repairs."
This isn't a show-stopper by any means. It's certainly not like the "lump crap cocktail" I came across a while back.
But it's one of those little...
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Jun.24.2009
While talking about healthcare yesterday, the president mentioned "Americans who like their doctor."
These constructions drive me nuts. On the one hand, it's odd to refer to a large group of Americans as having a single "doctor." On the other hand, "Americans who like their...
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Jun.12.2009
It's official. I'm now cuckoo nutty about sentences. After years of copy editing and obsessing about sentence structure, I passed into the realm of cuckoo nutty this morning when I read this first sentence of a Reuters story: "A loss in server connectivity that caused the New York Stock...
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Jun.02.2009
This was in my e-mail in-box today:
"Dear Subscriber,
Coming soon, you can expect a little more out of your Los Angeles Times subscription. That's because in addition to the award-winning content you already get, you'll receive our exclusive monthly newsletter, "Above the Fold," in...
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May.13.2009
" ... enjoy an appetizer of Shrimp Louis or Lump Crap Cocktail ..."
And here's what's not so great about this moment in copy editing: I didn't catch the typo. One of my colleagues did -- after yours truly had read the document.
Yikes.
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Apr.27.2009
I noticed in a New York Times piece today that the the New York Times called itself The New York Times, with a capital T.
I noticed it because, in my copy editing work it seems I spend about half a day every day lowercasing the T in "the." In running text, my stylebook says, you...
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Apr.21.2009
I love it when the big boys of the journalism world make little typos - not because the typos are egregious or even funny, but because they help me put my own skills in perspective. So here's a headline from the main page at today's LATimes.com:
"A Boston University medical student charged in...
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