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.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

How dumb can you get?

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Stupidity used to be defined, at least in Baltimore, by the guys who decided to rob a gun store on Harford Road in Parkville. They attached ...
11 comments:
Monday, September 28, 2009

Your votes and patronage appreciated

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Word arrived Friday that I have been nominated for a Mobbie, one of The Baltimore Sun ’s awards for outstanding Maryland blogs. Voting begin...
9 comments:
Sunday, September 27, 2009

Purging the books

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Every few years, it seems, some necessity demands removal of superfluous books from the shelves — or books that can be perceived as superflu...
8 comments:
Saturday, September 26, 2009

Zombie editing

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Once again this morning, The Sun published an article about someone who suffered nonlife-threatening injuries .* Life-threatening is bad en...
5 comments:
Friday, September 25, 2009

Are you a closet Socialist?

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Amid all the cries of “Socialism!” as the Congress has grappled with the problems of reshaping the nation’s health care system, I thought th...
13 comments:

Today's word: egregious

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Egregious (adj.) From the Latin egregius (surpassing, illustrious). Formerly excellent, outstanding, or distinguished. Now used almost exc...
5 comments:
Thursday, September 24, 2009

The downward spiral

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Yesterday the Lexington Herald-Leader laid off Brian Throckmorton, who oversaw the copy desk. Mr. Throckmorton, an amiable colleague, is an ...
7 comments:

Punctuation without fear

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Today is National Punctuation Day , one of those gimmicky holidays on which one can be jocular or sober or both. Last year I posted a senten...
14 comments:
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Take off your hat, sir

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I was on the stand, testifying* in Baltimore County Circuit Court, when a man in a dark suit and a hat came into the courtroom and sat down....
28 comments:
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Papers, please

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In a jocular post the other day, I connected — and one reader cried “non sequitur”— high school students’ ignorance of basic information abo...
23 comments:
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