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.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

I celebrate my multiple failures

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 In 1969 I was full of youthful promise.  I graduated from Fleming County High School in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, an honor student and co-val...
2 comments:
Saturday, October 26, 2024

Everyone their own editor

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Editing comes with two problems: It takes time, and it costs money. And copy editing, which piles editing on editing, doubles the problem. M...
Thursday, October 17, 2024

Words for editors

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Today's offering is selections from my commonplace book, some of which you may want to post above your desk or, if you do cross stitch, ...
3 comments:
Friday, October 11, 2024

Take that

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 Yes, I said it, on social media, under my own name as an editor: "Half my editing is inserting 'that' where journalists have l...
3 comments:
Wednesday, October 2, 2024

What she said

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Anne Curzan thinks that two parties within us struggle to prevail over how we understand and use the English language.  One party she calls ...
Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Secrets of editing revealed

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The secret to editing is to ask questions so obvious as to make you appear slow-witted.  These are the questions to ask when you are doing s...
1 comment:
Thursday, September 5, 2024

It's a grand day for grammar

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 In the fifth through eighth grades, I was drilled in the traditional schoolroom grammar by two formidable ladies, Mrs. Jessie Perkins and M...
4 comments:
Monday, September 2, 2024

Ink-stained wretch has just about had enough

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  On this date in 1986 I took my seat on the copy desk of The Baltimore Sun . I had been a copy editor at The Cincinnati Enquirer  for six a...
5 comments:
Monday, August 26, 2024

Whiter than white

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I've been brooding over a suggestive phrase from Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me : "people who think they are white...
1 comment:
Saturday, August 17, 2024

Punctuation ain't grammar

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The Harris and Walz nominations have generated a flurry of back-and-forth arguments online, not about their political views, but rather how ...
5 comments:
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