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.

Friday, July 29, 2022

Step up to the Grammar Table

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On a September day in 2018, Ellen Jovin left her apartment in Manhattan and went to the street outside the 72nd Street subway station to set...
Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Classic yard care

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 Taking advantage of a break in the brutal summer heat, I cut the grass this morning in the appropriate classical manner, boustrophedon, mow...
3 comments:
Friday, July 22, 2022

The white man's burden

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 A wooden box of family papers holds the receipt for the property taxes my great-great-grandfather, John Early, paid to Fleming County, Kent...
Thursday, July 21, 2022

Yes, you can, and you may

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An online discussion group recently rehashed the ancient can/may  distinction* with several participants stoutly holding to it. As it happen...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 2, 2022

Our whitewashed textbooks

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Jim Johnson, who taught American history during my junior year at Fleming County High School, sought to enliven the class one day by setting...
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Friday, June 10, 2022

The accidental editor

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I did not come readily to my life's work.  As a student at Fleming County High School in Eastern Kentucky, I thought, being a bookworm g...
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Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Ten Reminders

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 When you are on social media, remember that your classmates who were dim then are probably not appreciably brighter today.  Your project wi...
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Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Take a breath. The wells of English are not defiled.

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 Someone raised a question today at an online grammar site, "Why is correct grammar a lost art?" and damme, I am heading down a we...
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Sunday, May 1, 2022

You are entitled to ignore bogus usage distinctions

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 Earlier today a colleague posted on Facebook about the entitled/titled  distinction, that entitled  must only be used in the sense of ...
5 comments:
Friday, April 29, 2022

Hands off the books

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 Books were not plentiful in Elizaville, the tobacco-farming town in Kentucky where I grew up. Most people did not have shelves and shelves ...
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