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.

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 ...
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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...
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Monday, September 8, 2025

Bad behavior in public? Summon a mob

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 If you have been on social media the past few days, you know the story. Video shows a woman confronting a father and son at a baseball game...
Friday, August 29, 2025

Discoveries

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 Some forty-odd years ago, I picked up a copy of Amy Clampitt's The Kingfisher  from the slush pile of books to be reviewed at The Cinci...
Monday, August 25, 2025

Cracker Barrel culture will not nourish you

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 When my grandfather, John H. McIntyre, died in 1945, my father, Raymond McIntyre, took over the operation of his general store in Elizavill...
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Thursday, August 21, 2025

In case you missed it ...

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 With all the claims on your time, along with your wide reading, it seems possible that you have not been assiduous in following this blog. ...
Monday, August 18, 2025

Just pick up a book

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 It has been a dreary summer in Baltimore, too damn hot to venture out of doors when it was not pouring down raining. Then a week of a vile ...
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Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Tais-toi, Karoline

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 The marginally literate White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week that the French should be "grateful" to the U...
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