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I've got a 12 year old licking his lips over this recipe! I wonder if the rolls would fit in his thermos...
More Pasta, More Cheese
Last night's "Meatless Monday" meal was yet another variation on the pasta and cheese theme. We're not big on lasgana here, because most lasagna recipes call for ricotta—not a big fave around these parts. But this one uses cottage cheese, and lots of fresh spinach. I doubled the recipe, which ma...
Sing it, sister!
How Sticklers Give Copyediting a Bad Name
Public sticklers have annoyed me forever, and I’ve been meaning to write about that, but recently in a post titled “Editors, Would You Do Me This Tiny Favour?” Katy McDevitt at PublishEd Adelaide did a great job of it herself. McDevitt gets to the meat of it in point 3: “It gives people the ...
Excellent guidelines, Carol. I've been trying to say just that with some of my copyediting students. Now I'll just send them here!
Dear Carol:How Do I Know When to Meddle?
Photo courtesy Peter Werkman Hello, Carol, I have been enjoying your blog on editing for quite some time. In particular, I appreciated your tips for newbie copy editors. I have been working freelance as a copy ...
Good luck with Lingua Franca, Carol! I'll miss your insightful comments here, but I'm sure you'll have plenty on the new blog, too.
Change Is Coming
For over a year, I’ve been turning up here weekly to rant and fume and share, and on my part, it’s been pure pleasure. I hear from enough of you to know not only that someone is out there listening, but that almost anything I’m experiencing in my life as a copyeditor has been similarly experien...
Thanks for the plug, Carol!
Hobbled?
Photo by Upyernoz Do you have any deficiencies that you find dispiriting? Me too. I cannot play card games, for instance—I can never keep track of which cards have been played. To my mind, a given card could appear at any time, even if I played it myself in the last hand. I also despair of ...
You're not the only one, Carol, not to know the complexities of British punctuation rules. I've never edited a British work, so I'm unfamiliar with those rules as well. I suspect that's the case for most writers and editors. If you haven't worked in a particular language, why would you know the rules?
I'm all for punctuation rules that are simple, efficient, and logical, be they British, American, or who knows what. If punctuation rules are easier, that gives me more time to deal with other issues and help the author create a work worth publishing.
“Logical Punctuation” and Quotation Marks: In Defense of CMOS
I must admit I was taken aback by David Marsh’s blog post last week at Mind Your Language. In “‘The British Style’? ‘The American Way?’ They Are Not So Different,” he explains that British style for punctuating quotations is not as “logical” as popularly thought. Am I the only one who didn’t k...
I wonder if the Boston-area Girl Scouts switched bakeries at some point, because we used to have Do-Si-Dos, Trefoils, Samoas, and Tagalongs. I was really confused the first couple of years after the switch. Which is why companies should be very careful about switching product names.
Girl Scouts Take a Bite Out of Cookie Selection
Get out your checkbooks: February is Girl Scout Cookie month. This year, the pickings will be slimmer than in the past, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported last week that “[t]o cut costs and increase revenue, a dozen Girl Scouts councils are testing out a plan to hawk just six d...
Good advice! Rules are so beaten into us that we forget we can make choices. I'm also surprised at how we can get caught up on style "rules." We forget that style rules aren't hard and fast and can vary greatly from one style guide to another. Some writers and editors have a difficult time with that variance.
Loose the Chains! The Rules Don't Always Bind
At the online Q&A, the Chicago Manual of Style often hears from writers and editors who are frustrated that they can’t find a rule about something. “I’ve searched everywhere!” they say, like kids looking for their shoes. Never mind that half the time the answer can be found in a dictionary or on...
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