A month or so ago I let a headline for an online magazine stand with "payed" instead of "paid." That article was the only work I had that day, which reminded me of when I used to wait tables and did everything right when we were busy, but could easily mess up when we were slow because I wasn't "on."

Hi Carol -- I think I might edit the second one a little differently: The cost of the food would be paid by the diners, "who will presumably fatten both themselves and their wallets by means of the event.” Or maybe even: The cost of the food would be paid by the diners, who "will presumably fatten both themselves and their wallets by means of the event.” Can't put my finger on why, but these read better to me. Or would that be putting too much of the original quote into unquoted territory? Kate

I had no idea bout this either! How useful. I'm definitely going to pin it once I find it. I'm not sure if this would work or if it even matters in 7, but in many graphics programs, when you want to resize a crop, holding down the Shift key while grabbing a corner keeps the aspect ratio correct.

Carol, I've been wanting to ask you about copyeditor vs. copy editor for ages! I prefer copy editor, but I use copyeditor because of CMoS. Maybe I'll switch back to copy editor. Once my current business cards run out, that is! Kate

Great post, great comments! This is all so funny! I hadn't heard bout the Shatner comma, but it immediately brought Christopher Walken's speech patterns to mind. There must be a Walken punctuation. Silent mispronouncer here, too. I pronounced "Viola!" as "VeeOHlah!" for years, and always wondered how "wah-lah" was actually spelled. And I'm guilty saying things like ept, gruntled... My mom has her own language. This is not an exaggeration: "Two real estate Mongols came into the restaurant the other day. They both ordered the Chicken Marsalis... are you okay??"

A great add-on for Firefox is the Zoom Toolbar extension, which puts a little toolbar with magnifying glasses wherever you like in your browser. You get a +, -, and = all in the same little space and can just click on them to resize any page.

I almost always get the "copywriter" reply. I used to reply something like, "Oh, I tried copywriting ONCE and hated it!" until I realized the weird looks I was getting were a non-verbal, "Then why are you a copywriter...?" Even in writing -- e-mail, cover letters, forums, you name it -- people see "copywriter" when I write "copyeditor."