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, December 5, 2022

The common comma

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A couple of times a week I come across an online forum with people who are wobbly about the use of commas, so let me set this straight: Shou...
3 comments:
Monday, November 28, 2022

Stoops to conquer

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 The late John Plunkett, for many years an assistant managing editor at The Baltimore Sun  and overseer of its copy desk, insisted that in d...
6 comments:
Monday, November 7, 2022

Testing, testing ...

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 One day about thirty years ago I arrived at the copy desk, and my boss, Andy Faith, took me aside and murmured, "The editing test has ...
6 comments:
Monday, October 31, 2022

Just the facts, in English, please

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 My former colleague Bob Erlandson has forwarded a specimen from the Associated Press, about the Pelosi assault, as an example of what passe...
1 comment:
Tuesday, October 25, 2022

We've been had

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My eminent colleague Karen Conlin posted this morning an awkward sentence published by a Chicago television station: "A man killed in a...
7 comments:
Friday, October 14, 2022

Maybe it's time to let go of it

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I posted this a couple of days ago: What long-held usage distinction/rule/shibboleth have you just given up as an editor, reluctantly or not...
7 comments:
Sunday, October 2, 2022

Hilary Mantel on royals and pandas

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 From "Royal bodies: From Anne Boleyn to Kate Middleton" "Our current royal family doesn't have the difficulties in breed...
3 comments:
Wednesday, September 28, 2022

It's all the rage

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 Words and usages in English go in and out of fashion. When a new expression, or a repurposed old one, emerges, the eager adapters jump on i...
5 comments:
Saturday, September 10, 2022

Death, be not affected

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 Don't be mealy-mouthed about mortality. People die. When they do, just say so.  At the death of Elizabeth II, some reports said that sh...
5 comments:
Tuesday, August 30, 2022

The generous and the pinched

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Another wrangle last week, this one in an online discussion with people who insist that the relative pronoun that , against all evidence , m...
2 comments:
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