I’ve been putting this post off for a while for a couple of reasons: first, I was a little burned out and was enjoying not thinking about my thesis for a while, and second, I wasn’t sure how to tackle this post. My thesis is about eighty pages long all told, and I wasn’t sure […]
Every writer needs a good editor. It doesn’t matter how good you are, how many years of experience you have, or how meticulous you are; you simply can’t see all of your own mistakes. We all have a blind spot for our own typos and for the weaknesses in our arguments, because we know how […]
My wife and I are launching a freelance editing and design service, Perfect Page Editing & Design, and are looking for clients. Please take a look!
There’s a long-running debate over whether the construction reason why is acceptable. Critics generally argue that why essentially means reason, so saying reason why is like saying reason twice. Saying something twice is redundant, and redundancy is bad; ergo, reason why is bad. This is really a rather bizarre argument. Reason is a noun; why […]
In case you haven’t been following me on Twitter or elsewhere, I’m the newest regular contributor to Visual Thesaurus. You can see my contributor page here. My latest article, “Orwell and Singular ‘They’”, grew out of an experience I had last summer as I was writing a feature article on singular they for Copyediting. I […]
I recently received a review copy of Don McNair’s Editor-Proof Your Writing: 21 Clear Steps to the Clear Prose Publishers and Agents Crave, which is available now from Quill Driver Books. I’ll be up-front: I was very skeptical of the idea that you could editor-proof your writing by following certain steps, and my opinion hasn’t […]
In case you haven’t seen it already, I have a a new post up at Visual Thesaurus. It explores the history of toward and towards and specifically looks at copy editors’ role in driving towards out of use in edited American English. It’s only available to subscribers, but the subscription is only $19.95 a year. […]
Today is National Grammar Day, in case you hadn’t heard, and to celebrate I want to take a look at some of those who hold themselves up to be defenders of the English language: copy editors. A few weeks ago, the webcomic XKCD published this comic mocking the participants in a Wikipedia edit war over […]
In honor of National Grammar Day this Monday, I’ve reduced all the t-shirts in the Arrant Pedantry Store by $1 (sorry, the price drop doesn’t apply to the product designer). Plus, you can get $5 off orders of $30 or more with the coupon GREENWEEK through March 5. Watch this space for a real post […]
Yes, it’s another post full of shameless self-promotion. Get free delivery on all orders today through Wednesday with the code FREELOVE. The code works at both the regular store and the product designer. No minimum purchase required. I apologize that I haven’t written a real post in over a month. Right now I’m frantically trying […]
