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.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Jobs not to be touched with a bargepole

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You might think that, eight months out of work and two and a half months past the end of severance pay, I would snap at just about any possi...
11 comments:
Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Trying too hard

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The art of writing a headline is to encapsulate the central element and tone of the article in a way that a reader can take in at a glance. ...
6 comments:
Monday, December 28, 2009

Our inbred universities

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One of my informants sends this specimen from the Daily Local News of Chester County, Pennsylvania. It is the second sentence in an article ...
10 comments:
Sunday, December 27, 2009

You don't want your editor to be your chum

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Your editor is your friend, but not your pal. Your friend knows your strengths and your weaknesses, and is able to tell you a few home tru...
5 comments:
Saturday, December 26, 2009

How dumb do they think we are?

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Once a television news operation gets a technology, it’s obliged to use it, regardless whether it makes any sense. When I lived in Cincinn...
11 comments:
Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Another damn word of the year

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Every maven and his sisters and his cousins, whom he reckons by the dozens, is pushing a word-of-the-year article or word-of-the-decade arti...
8 comments:

Writing made bad on purpose

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It must puzzle lay people — it has certainly puzzled me for years — that professional journalists write so clumsily. I’m going to lead you t...
10 comments:
Monday, December 21, 2009

Watch your adverbs

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In English, word order counts for a great deal, as this sentence from Baltimoresun.com illustrates: Kevin P. Callahan was charged with ne...
3 comments:
Sunday, December 20, 2009

Just want it to be over

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One of my readers suggests that I address the naming of the decade that is passing away, since no one seems to have agreed on a term. Fortun...
16 comments:
Saturday, December 19, 2009

That man in the White House

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Hell of a story: Popular Democrat comes into office succeeding a highly unpopular Republican administration, hits the ground running to deal...
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