You Don't Say

John McIntyre, whom James Wolcott called "the Dave Brubeck of the art and craft of copy editing," writes on language, editing, journalism, and random topics. Identifying his errors relieves him of the burden of omniscience. Write to jemcintyre@gmail.com, befriend at Facebook, or follow at Twitter: @johnemcintyre. His original "You Don't Say" blog at The Baltimore Sun ran from 2005 to 2021, and posts on it can sometimes be found at baltimoresun.com through Google searches.

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Yeah, "the real story"

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 An essay by Joan Didion in 1968 pointed out a fundamental problem with standard American journalism: "It is a comment on our press con...
7 comments:
Sunday, November 30, 2025

Those holiday meals

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 I posted this on Thanksgiving morning on social media: I made the mashed potatoes this morning, with cream cheese, Parmesan, and more butte...
2 comments:
Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Evicting Mr. Mencken

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 A few days ago the Enoch Pratt Free Library dedicated the DeWayne Wickham Room of Maryland Journalism, housing the papers and honoring the ...
5 comments:
Tuesday, November 11, 2025

I knew Bob Erlandson; he was a friend of mine

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 We learned this week that Bob Erlandson died Friday at ninety-four, brought down by a massive stroke. Among the  Baltimore Sun  reporters I...
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Friday, October 31, 2025

Give my regards, irregardless

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 Facebook's Captain Grammar Pants laid down the law this week: "Irregardless is a double negative, and we all know that we can’t no...
Tuesday, October 28, 2025

The Old editor glares at AI

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 A while back I shared a post, then deleted it after I was persuaded that the image in it had been generated by AI. I do not trust AI and do...
Monday, October 20, 2025

To the students

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 Fleming County High School in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, from which I graduated in 1969, has announced on Facebook that it is looking for gues...
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Wednesday, October 1, 2025

What we have lost

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The tone in newspapers, when I started out as a copy editor forty years ago, was that the copy desk was a place where reporters fetched  up ...
3 comments:
Saturday, September 20, 2025

The You Didn't Read the Book Club: Rules for Participants

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 Two weeks ago I proposed a You Didn't Read the Book club: Membership limited to English majors, who are not permitted to confess to not...
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Wednesday, September 10, 2025

You were not born yesterday. Be skeptical as editor and reader

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In a time when widespread disinformation appears to be overtaking widespread misinformation, you would do well to read and edit cautiously a...
1 comment:
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