When I am Copyeditor General ...

Wait - do we already have a Copyeditor General?

2011-09-09T13:39:00.005-04:00

My new hero is Annetta Cheek of the Center for Plain Language. She has helped push through the Federal Plain Writing Act (PDF), which mandates that government agencies should write plainly — that is, clearly and in a style that the target audience will understand — in all documents intended for the public.

The CPL website has some nice examples of government language before and after a good old-fashioned plaining.

My favorite:

Before
This rule proposes the Spring/Summer subsistence harvest regulations in Alaska for migratory birds that expire on August 31, 2003.

After
This rule proposes the Spring/Summer subsistence harvest regulations for migratory birds in Alaska. The regulations will expire on August 31, 2003.

The Plain Language Action and Information Network, a group of federal language nerds I would like to hug, has created a fabulous document (PDF) to help government agencies tighten their texts.

It covers everything from how to organize themes to avoiding passive voice to (let's get seriously basic here) how to write a topic sentence. Oh, and there's a whole section on writing for the web (yay!).

Frankly, I think every organization in the country, from hospitals (I'm looking at you, nice surgeon who advised that I take a pill sublingually) to banks to schools to businesses, needs to print it out, hang it on the wall, memorize it.

The Act goes into effect in October. Prepare yourselves, Feds!

Copyeditor General's ruling: Perhaps the first focus of the Act should be the Act itself, which begins:
To enhance citizen access to Government information and services by establishing that Government documents issued to the public must be written clearly, and for other purposes.
"...should be written clearly, and for other purposes"? What other purposes should it be written for?

Politicians will respect homophones

2010-09-04T14:26:00.005-04:00

I know, I abandoned this blog for a long while. This was partly due to time constraints, but also because ... I got a little tired. Bored. Jaded.

I mean, how many times can one comment on poor grammar and egregious typos before one becomes weary? Especially in this heat?

(Sighs, picks up fan, listlessly waves it in general direction of face.)

But then someone gave me a reason to come back.

Guy Glodis.

I'll be honest, I really hadn't given much thought to Guy Glodis. I was aware he was running for political office because some of my neighbors have big GLODIS signs in their yards, but otherwise I knew nothing of the man.

Today, this came in the mail.

I may not know much about politics, but I do know a thing or two about homophones. What Guy Glodis meant to say was that he would do this to financial improvidence:

What his brochure suggests, however, is a little more like this:

But wait; there's more.

On the back page of the brochure is a quote from Guy Glodis himself:

Popular opinion differs as to the correct use of the apostrophe to denote the possessive in words ending in "s"; however, the court of the Copyeditor General does not listen to popular opinion.

AP style says to "use only an apostrophe" and gives "Kansas' schools" as an example. More specific to Guy Glodis' (see what I did there?) employment goals is this helpful hint from the Mass.gov Style Guide:

Possessive
The possessive form for Massachusetts is Massachusetts'.

Copyeditor General's ruling: If Guy Glodis really wants to bring an end to governmental profligacy, he might want to start by asking someone to proof his glossy, four-color campaign materials before he sends them to the printer.

And meanwhile, he should listen to the Apostrophe Song.

The president will solve nothing with bathroom tissue

2009-04-13T10:03:00.003-04:00

Today in Salon:

Copyeditor General's ruling: There are many ways to approach controversial political issues. However, I don't think we can collect enough Charmin to TP an entire island ...

Johnny Depp will not work the Frialator

2009-03-15T08:01:00.005-04:00

More signs of the crumbling economy: celebrities are being forced to take side jobs in restaurants.

(Frogs' legs is a dish with which the actor is apparently familiar ...)

Copyeditor General's ruling: I'm sure the versatile Mr. Depp would have no problems keeping up in the kitchen. But shouldn't he concentrate on his movie career?

There will be no "there" there

2009-03-03T08:57:00.002-05:00

Copyeditor General's ruling: You know, Grauniad, I sometimes dream of a day when I won't find a typo somewhere in your content.

Temptation will be permanent

2009-02-26T18:40:00.003-05:00

Many companies are looking for ways to cut costs these days; one common solution is to replace full-time employees with workers hired through staffing agencies. With no benefits or (albeit worthless) retirement plans to worry about, businesses can see significant savings.

But just because temping is useful in the business world, there's no reason to try to apply it to all areas of life.

And my favorite, because it's from a site called Taking Children Seriously:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I see no good reason to hire out your dinner service, your children's palate or yourself—not even if the devil is running the company.

Cupid will trade his bow for a red pen

2009-02-14T11:05:00.008-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Please accept these tokens of my esteem.

First, of course, a card with a heartfelt message:

And then some thoughtful gifts:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Nothing says "I love you" like a long, slow, passionate session of heavy proofreading.

Good grammar will make bath time lots of fun

2009-02-07T22:20:00.005-05:00

Allow me to translate:

Ducky Is by the Dozen
Rubber Ducky You Are in Possession of The One

Who doesn't love rubber ducky is? They've been around since the created of the 1800 ...

It's even rumored that Queen Elizabeth owned a rubber ducky (which, being in the past tense, implies either Liz or her bath toy are no longer with us)!

It (Her Majesty's duck, apparently) became hugely popular ... and since then has achieved iconic status in the USA (which explains why Liz no longer has the duck; it's headlining at Caesar's Palace next month).

Now days (who needs extra vowels anywy?) ... it's one of our most popular theme baby gifts (any thoughts on this one? Popular theme-baby? No?).

Copyeditor General's ruling: This apparent ignorance of basic grammar makes me so tense. I need a tubby filled with water and nice fluffy suds.

A dictionary will be as vital as a compass

2009-02-01T19:01:00.003-05:00

Imagine you're out on the Appalachian Trail, running low on gorp, trying to figure out whether you can make it to the next shelter before nightfall.

Do you rely on your equipment to guide you to safety? Do you have a whistle with a clear tone, a reliable compass, a strong light to illuminate your path?

Or do you have this?

Oh, you think that's going to help you through the woods, do you? (Wait—was that an owl or a coyote? Are there bears in these parts?)

Perhaps you should have paid closer attention to the packaging. The manufacturer certainly didn't.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Now how safe do you feel?

In politics, dog years will not count

2009-01-24T06:23:00.003-05:00

Friday's Guardian included an op-ed piece on the new Democratic senator for New York that began like this:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Dog years are long, and donkey's years are longer; still, I don't think the country is ready for animal politicians, regardless of their political longevity. For now, let's stick to measuring experience in man—or, for that matter, woman— years.

Hans will be banned from the kitchen

2009-01-16T10:28:00.004-05:00

I was excited to discover that Boston University offers a variety of food and wine sessions, including an intensive 14-week culinary arts program that includes some of the area's top chefs (Jaques Pepin! Ana Sortun! Barbara Lynch! Jody Adams!) on the faculty.

And then I realized why it might not be such a fun experience:

I'm not exactly sure what it means, but it doesn't sound particularly appetizing, does it?

And as we're already perusing the page, let's note the inconsistency in class size. First it's this:

And then it's this:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Good cooking is about attention to detail. I hope that's more important to the culinary instructors than it is to the BU website's editor.

Retrospectives will be pretty

2009-01-11T15:49:00.002-05:00

It's customary to end the year (or begin the next) with a summary of previous events; my Year in Review comes courtesy of Wordle, a fun site that transforms text into word clouds.

Here's to another year of finding typos, grammatical errors and proofreading failures; let's hope there's not too much to do!

Parking will be thorough and careful

2009-01-11T14:44:00.004-05:00

This sign is doubtless familiar to anyone who passes the Changsho restaurant on Mass Ave in Cambridge, and it's certainly worth sharing with the rest of the world:

And in case you're wondering what that means:

Copyeditor General's ruling: If you feel the need to visit Changsho, I suggest you walk.

Spas will get the deep-cleansing treatment

2008-12-21T07:09:00.004-05:00

For Christmas/birthday this year, the Copyeditor General is going to New York, to include a visit to a Spa To Be Named Later. Wisely, location and treatment decisions have been left in her hands. And so to Google.

What does one look for in a spa website? Treatment descriptions, prices, photos, of course. And also cleanliness, professionalism, attention to detail. You want assurance that the service will be perfect.

All right, perhaps it's enough to feel safe; when you're on a table, encased in mud and Saran wrap, unable to move, you at least want to know a creepy admirer isn't lurking outside.

Uh-oh. Okay, so how's this: at the very least, you want to be treated as an individual, not given some cookie-cutter experience. You want reassurance that the spa is not just half-heartedly following a template.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Reading an imperfect spa website is like discovering discarded flip-flops in your locker or getting a facial from an esthetician with a cold. In the above cases, extensive deep-tissue massage is required.

Christmas will not be so commercial

2008-12-14T17:52:00.002-05:00

The economy is in freefall, and 40% of Americans plan to spend less on Christmas this year.

So how is a retailer supposed to encourage people to buy its products? By advertising them in every possible place. Seen in the Christmas Tree Store:

Copyeditor Generals' ruling: Is there any more insidious way for the True Meaning of Christmas (TMOC) to be overwhelmed by crass commercialism? These tree skirts have 24 pockets, presumably so a new promo can be unveiled every day leading up to December 25.

Anyway, that's not how you do Christmas advertising; this is how you do Christmas advertising:

Facebook advertisers will be forced to proofread

2008-12-11T09:35:00.003-05:00

I've already said plenty about the grammar on Facebook. The users don't drive me nuts; it's the advertisers.

Now that it's a simple (if not cheap) process to promote an online business, it appears the hard work of writing pleasing ad copy is being taken out of the hands of marketing communications professionals and dropped in the laps of either interns or monkeys.

Copyeditor General's ruling: I think we all know who the idiot is in this situation.

The English will not be afraid of snow

2008-12-02T09:35:00.002-05:00

Doutbless this will have been corrected by the time you see it, but I couldn't let this howler from the December 2 Guardian homepage pass unnoticed:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I've seen cars in the UK spin out on a light dusting of snow, so I know it makes people nervous. But is such a dramatic reaction really necessary?

Not even the President will be off-limits (Sir)

2008-11-29T15:52:00.004-05:00

Dear President-elect Obama,

I see you're currently choosing your Cabinet. That's great. It's important to make the right decisions and bring in the right people. There's a lot of cleaning up to be done, and you're going to need help.

May I present, for your consideration, the possibility of a new, nominated position under the Department of Education?

I see this role as being responsible for maintaining standards of grammatical competence in all communications from commercial, non-profit and government organzations to the public: signage, posters, ads, websites — you name it. Heaven knows there are plenty of examples to justify the need.

It's time for the Copyeditor General.

I should warn you that this role should have a free hand to stamp out typos, punctuation errors and usability issues wherever they occur. And that goes right to the top, sir.

Let me explain.

It's great that your people have created change.gov to keep us up to date with the transition toward January 20. But I need to draw your attention to a few areas.

There's the serial comma issue, for instance. Are you for it or against it?

Here's the best one, sadly too large to embed here in a readable size: a paragraph that gives it to you both ways.

There are other hiccups on the site, both small and easily overlooked:

And large and frankly shocking, like the dropdown menu that (at least through yesterday) linked from this:

to this:

Thankfully, this last has now been fixed. But how long did it take?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Drop me an email, sir. I'll be waiting.

Oh, also, could you find a post for Melinda? She brought the serial comma issue to my attention, which means she's Deputy of the Week. Thanks.

Fruit baskets won't contain metadata

2008-11-23T10:27:00.005-05:00

I haven't had much time do begin holiday shopping (or to do anything else for that matter), so this morning I tried to kick-start the process online. Unfortunately, I got derailed pretty quickly.

During a search for organic fruit-of-the-month clubs in the UK (of which there are none, it seems--there's a niche waiting to be filled), I came across the site for Pomona Fruit Baskets.

It certainly looked inviting enough.

There was a page describing the health benefits of their fruit selection:

So far, so good.

But when I went to check out the "Buy a fruit basket" page, the menu that dropped down showed this:

And the pages underneath had things like:

Copyeditor General's ruling: There's certainly nothing wrong with buying an off-the-shelf template for your company website, Pomona. But you should pick over the code and harvest out the pages that detract from the site's overall quality and visual appeal.

I mean, you wouldn't leave wrinkled grapes on a bunch, or keep moldy apples next to fresh ones, or pack over-ripe bananas underneath pineapples, would you?

Or would you?

Detail-oriented brands will check the details

2008-11-10T19:55:00.004-05:00

I'm staying at a golf resort in Orlando, one of those frighteningly new places that seem to have risen, fully stocked with fresh towels and $25 breakfasts, out of the Florida swamp.

Everything is neat and clean and bright and climate-controlled; on a stroll through the grounds early this morning, I didn't encounter a single fellow-guest, but I did see a dozen different people whose job seemed to be preventing the grass from becoming disorderly.

So you can imagine my complete and utter delight at discovering this offering on the dessert wine list:

Copyeditor General's ruling: If your brand is centered around "superior service" and "four-diamond luxury accommodations," it's a good bet that your clientele knows its way around a wine list—or at least around an atlas. Typos like this make me wonder where else you're cutting corners.

Lewis Black won't change a thing

2008-11-01T08:33:00.003-04:00

You've probably heard of Lewis Black, the angry truth-teller who rants about politics and culture.

Aggressive, visceral, supremely confident in his opinions. Seems like a masculine individual, right?

So I was very surprised to find this in my Twitter feed earlier this week:

Oh, Lewis! Is your message what I think it is?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Turns out that no, Lewis is not becoming Louise. The message is just a rant that "doctors" should hurry up and "cure cancer," because, as everyone knows, cancer is a single disease that can be fixed with one simple magic bullet. But that's an angry rant for another day.

Hallowe'en will not scare me

2008-10-23T16:47:00.004-04:00

There are only eight more days to Hallowe'en (and yes, it has an apostrophe, dammit!) and I still don't know what to wear. I could go with something topical, such as:

Well, that must be an anomaly, because—

Oh, come on! The guy has only been front-page news for the last two years; it's not as though you've had no chance to see his name written down.

But I understand; his name is unusual. At least that (other) one has a more common name:

Okay, maybe we should move away from politics. How about dressing as a pop star?

Hm ... some sort of Spears/Spongebob hybrid, perhaps?

Apparently it's just too much trouble for some companies to spellcheck the names of extremely famous people.

How about a historical costume?

Perhaps we should look to more traditional Hallowe'en disguises: ghosts and witches and so on. And then what?

All right, that's it. No costumes at all this year. I'll just decorate the house. Does anyone have any tips?

Copyeditor General's ruling: I'm considering spending October 31 in an abandoned hospital next to a cemetery where bats roost. After seeing the frightening amount of poorly proofed Hallowe'en copy, it won't be scary at all.

Signwriters won't make up new movies

2008-10-15T22:04:00.002-04:00

I still remember reading the movie listings in my local paper in 1987 and howling with laughter on seeing that my hometown theater was showing the Jack Nicholson/Susan Sarandon film Richard of Eastwick.

So I felt quite nostalgic when I saw the offerings at the Fresh Pond Cinema the other week.

Copyeditor General's ruling: I'm not too sure about Ghoast Town, but frankly Knights in Rodanthe would have made for a much more interesting narrative.

Oh, also, the listings on the other side of the board had Righteous spelled wronglyous.

Even magvertorials will have real editors

2008-10-05T10:25:00.010-04:00

Sometimes I have to go looking for examples of poor grammar, and sometimes they just land in my lap. The latter happened this week at the hair salon, where I discovered the magazine North End Scene, published by DePasquale Ventures, which owns a number of Italian food outlets.

The North End is not an area I know well. But as it's crammed with restaurants, bakeries and an increasing number of hip boutiques, I feel I should get a better sense of its contents. So I started to read.

Let's leave aside the fact that the best feature—interviews with Boston hotel concierges—is unrelated to the North End, and skip straight to the good stuff, in order of reverse heinousness.

First up, the conclusion to an article about buying cheese for a party:

First of all, if you're writing a food article, could you please check brand-name style? It's Ritz crackers (or, according to the Nabisco site, Ritz®).

Side note: the current online Ritz campaign has the most awesome wording on its opening page ever. If it's no longer up, don't worry: I saved a screenshot.

And what's with the punctuation here? That comma after "extraordinary" should really be a colon. And that's without considering whether the intended (upscale) audience for this mag would view buying a selection of imported cheeses as an "extraordinary" action.

Moving on. The next one's pretty long, and needs more space than this narrow layout allows, so please to read it here.

Oh, where to begin? The observation that "American women" (all of them, one imagines) "literally have their bank accounts hanging in their closets"? The writer's unchecked disagreement with the opinion of "any 'fashionista'"?

The line describing Valentino's 45-year career, followed by another noting that he's worked in the fashion industry for at least 48 years?

Or how about the way this writer re-invents "to profess" as a reflexive verb? Genius!

And for those who literally explode when they see misuse of "literally," there's more:

He literally lives in a lifestyle dictated by a fantasy world! And there are no normal people!

Why does it not surprise me that Alisa Kapinos, the writer of this article, is also the magazine's editor in chief?

But all of this pales into comparison with the simple beauty of one of the most egregious basic errors I have ever seen in print.

In a clumsy approximation of an upscale travel article—the type that says things like "we meet and greet beneath flowing waterfalls"—is this jaw-dropper:

What? WHAT? "The bow-shaped boat, what used to be the traditional means of transportation ..."

Copyeditor General's ruling: It's perfectly acceptable for a company that owns multiple restaurants to create a glossy magazine whose central goal is to promote those businesses. But as I've said many times before, you can't overlook the details.

If you're trying to brand yourself as a model of upscale sophistication, you have to hire people who can write and edit.

Or is North End Scene an accurate reflection of the dining experience at Bricco or Umbria: a veneer of style hiding poorly executed dishes?

Churches will have spellcheck

2008-09-28T15:42:00.004-04:00

Remember how I said God would be in the details? Not yet, apparently.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Further down the street fron this church is another that has a sign that reads, "Never place a period where God has placed a comma."

Perhaps a more useful aphorism would be "Never place a sign inviting students to church if you don't know how to spell."

September 24 will be a national holiday

2008-09-24T09:39:00.004-04:00

It's National Punctuation Day. Please celebrate responsibly, perhaps with a t-shirt:

or a song:

No one will fraternize with clients

2008-09-19T12:35:00.002-04:00

I just happened to be browsing a Web communications job posting on the Tufts University careers site when I noticed this gem:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I'm not quite sure what kind of Web Comms office they're running up at Tufts, but they'd better keep their pants on.

Spellcheck will be reserved for those who can spell

2008-09-13T06:41:00.006-04:00

I used a calculator for the first time when I was six years old. This was the mid-'70s; pocket calculators were only just becoming affordable. I thought it was the greatest thing ever, and quickly turned it upside down to spell HELLO. Once I realized it was largely useless as a writing tool (what? You're supposed to use it for numbers? Ewww!) I moved on.

But I was still aware of the criticism that calculators would make people intellectually lazy; children would never learn to add (a vital life-skill, apparently).

And then we all got computers, and now not only do we not need to do math, but we also don't need to get up from the couch to meet people or buy groceries.

We can even stand on virtual street corners like crazy old men and rant endlessly about, say, the state of the English language.

Of course, while I love the efficiencies computers bring, I'm now old enough, and have read enough, to understand those '70s concerns. And I point an accusatory finger at spellcheck.

Why? Taylor Mali explains. (Contains mildly offensive language; you have been warned!)

Copyeditor General's ruling: I couldn't have pat it butter myself. And thanks to the lovely Sarah, who sent me the video and so is anointed Deputy of the Week!

Spelling will not be a political issue

2008-09-06T20:01:00.004-04:00

I know you've probably seen this a billion times, but I couldn't resist:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I was hoping for bipartisan agreement on the use of dictionaries. Oh well.

The English will respect English

2008-09-01T11:52:00.005-04:00

Point: Ken Smith, a lecturer in Criminology at Bucks New University in England (motto: We've Been a University Since 2007), wrote an op-ed piece for the August 7 Times Higher Education in which he argued that rather than repeatedly correcting students' spelling errors, teachers should accept them as variant spellings.

His reasoning? Most commonly misspelled words are of such ancient provenance that there's no reason for modern audiences to follow blind tradition:

We spell the word "February" the way we do only because it is taken from the Latin word februa, the Roman festival of purification. Similarly, the "correct" spelling of the word "Wednesday" comes from the Old English Wodnes daeg, or Woden's day. But why should we still pay homage today to a pagan god or a Roman festival of purification?

Counterpoint: The same magazine published responses to its annual call for egregious errors made in exams. As reported in The Guardian (oh, the irony!), British students wrote that "control of infectious diseases is very important in case an academic breaks out" and that "flirtation makes water safe to drink."

Copyeditor General's ruling: Sure, I can forgive the occasional typo; I can look the other way when I see uncommon words misspelled. Nobody's perfect, after all.

But when someone who is charged with teaching the next crop of professionals tries to argue that it's okay to half-ass the days of the week or the months of the year--because really, it's not as though you see them in writing very often, is it?--well, then we have a problem.

And if the exam examples are any indication, there's a lot of work to be done.

Newspapers won't confuse reggae singers with politicians' wives

2008-08-25T12:37:00.005-04:00

Gotta love The Grauniad and their hey-it's-close-enough style of copyediting. From today's article about Barack Obama's family's appearance at the DNC:

Forgive my political ignorance, but did I miss something? I did a thorough search on the Googles, and this was the only Tippa I found.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Maybe that whole PMRC thing was a coverup for something more sinister ...

Update: Seems someone noticed the error; Tippa is out and Tipper is in. Phew!

T shirt companies will not worry me

2008-08-23T13:57:00.011-04:00

After much consideration, I decided that the one thing missing from this blog was merchandise: some way for the Copyeditor General's legions of supporters to demonstrate their love of good grammar. So I started checking out online custom merchmongers to see what was available.

But I only got as far as Spreadshirt. And then I had to stop. Because I was reminded of what's really important.

Um, what? Eisenhower was many things, but fashion designer was not one of his best-known traits. And while there is at least one example of a kid-size campaign shirt, I highly doubt that Ike's win over Adlai Stevenson in 1952 (not '53, Spreadshirt fact-checkers!) came down to little Billy's decision to wear it to the fishin' hole.

Okay, slight distraction. Back to the merch search. What, exactly, is Spreadshirt? Let's check their "About Us" page:

"Spreadshirt makes it possible for private and commercial internet site operators to market their homepages quickly, simply, and independently. Internet site operators can create an online shop with individually created products and connect it with their homepage within minutes."

Internet site operators? When was this written, 1996? And why are we only marketing the homepage? What are all the other pages on my site, electronic chopped liver?

"To operate a Spreadshirt shop, you just need Internet access, your own designs or logo, and to market your shop online."

Don't you love how easy it all sounds? Yep, just log on and use your in-depth knowledge of online marketing! Weren't we all born with that?

Okay, pop quiz: when you think about successful internet businesses, what names come to mind? Google, eBay, DoubleClick? Nay, I say thee! Nay!

"Spreadshirt is one of the most successful internet companies of the past few years."

Two hundred and fifty employees, they have! Look out, Yahoo!

From their mission statement:

"We want to build the best possible online create-buy-experience for everyone from Homer Simpson to Salvador Dalí."

Well, good luck with that. I hate to break it to you, Spreadshirt, but one is a cartoon character and the other left us in 1989. Neither will be ordering from you in the foreseeable future.

"We want to be a fun and inspiring place to work, where integrity, delivery, and innovation reigns."

Which one? If they all reign, they need a plural verb, dears.

"There is no limit to what your imigination can do."

True: there is no limit to what we can imigine.

Copyeditor General's ruling: I have nothing against Germans. Seriously, I don't: I studied the language for five years. I love their Riesling, their Stollen and the fact that The Hoff has somewhere else to go.

But the same goes for them as for the Japanese, Peruvian-Canadians, Texans and Steven Seagal: when your website is the face of your business, you need to make sure your content is flawless. If you're wrong about easily verifiable facts, and you don't check spelling, how well will you do with my order?

Olympians will try to win. Period.

2008-08-16T09:10:00.010-04:00

I can't watch the Olympics. I just can't. Sure, I love the running around and the jumping and the splashing. But whenever the announcers start to discuss the essential aim of the participants' actions, I have to turn away. Because eventually they'll use That Verb.

To medal.

I know, I know; it's largely accepted now. It has weasled its way into speech and hooked itself into that particularly creative and forgiving (read: lazy) area of communications we call sports journalism, and now we see it everywhere:

One could clearly make a case for the verb's legitimacy. There's even a linguistic term that describes this kind of thing: anthimeria, or the use of one type of word as if it were another (e.g. a noun used as a verb). Shakespeare and Milton did it all the time.

I should make clear that it's not the practice of word-use substitution that bugs me: it's purely, simply, exquisitely That Verb. It's unnecessary. It's vapid. Again, it's lazy.

And yes, it takes longer to say "he'd like to finish within the top three" or "she hopes to win either gold, silver or bronze" or "he expects to be one of the guys with the flowers and the crying and the national anthem and stuff."

I wonder, though, whether there's a more culturally telling reason for the use and acceptance of this particular word choice: it makes the goal of the action the verb. It turns the symbol of achievement into the entire experience; it makes the destination the journey. It's no longer about participation: it's about winning, period.

And don't even get me started on the use of "winningest."

Copyeditor General's ruling: If this is an acceptable way of referring to aspirations and aquisitions, why limit it to sport? Why not use it in other circumstances?

I haven't had lunch yet, but I expect to sandwich soon.

Our offer was accepted, so it looks like we'll house by the end of the month.

She went into premature labor and surprised everyone by babying this morning.

Both McCain and Obama are hoping to president in November.

Okay, your turn: hit me with your best/worst example of anthimeria!

Eels will not be party animals

2008-08-03T08:47:00.004-04:00

Last week we went to the New England Aquarium, whose main attraction is the four-story tropical ocean tank, in which swim turtles, sharks, sting rays and all manner of brightly colored fish.

And also this:

Handsome fella, no? He's a moray, and there are two, or maybe three, in the tank. I'm not quite sure of the exact number because we never saw them together; they seemed to be solitary creatures.

Which is why I was surprised to find this:

and this:

and this:

and this:

All of which lead me to believe that the morays we saw were just spending a little alone time before getting together for a rousing game of bridge.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Another case of those darned confusing homophones, which we've covered here before. My instinct is to blame the blessing/curse of the Internets, where anyone can post anything without going through an editorial gatekeeper.

But not this time. All the above came from books. Actual, real, printed (and allegedly edited and proofread) books. You can see a few dozen more examples here. Shocking!

The word for the rules and social customs of a culture, while pronounced with two syllables, is spelled mores. But:

If you see a big eel
And its face makes you squeal
That's a moray.

(Sorry.)

No one will paint on the roof of my mouth

2008-07-27T14:05:00.005-04:00

You may be familiar with my other blog, in which I write about food. I'm also learning, slowly but surely, how to take better photographs of the dishes I create/consume.

But as I recently discovered, it's not enough that I use two forms of creativity to capture my epicurean events. According to a wealth of evidence, I should be painting them as well.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Not only do I need to dig up my ancient paintbox and start blending pigments, I should also allow my color-mixing surface to be pushed, prodded, stretched and generally abused.

This is not a particularly palatable thought; in truth, it leaves rather a sour taste on my palate.

Yogurt will not be duplicitous

2008-07-19T07:24:00.005-04:00

One lunchtime last week, my boss Caren came over to my desk, bearing a pot of Greek yogurt.

"I've got one for you!" she said, triumphantly. "Take a look at this."

Yep, looks like yogurt.

"Now read the description."

Copyeditor General's ruling: There's nothing wrong with being a math-averse copywriter; I count myself in that number. But when you're dealing with percentages, it's useful to understand what "0% non fat" means.

Of course, this could just be the world's most unhealthy yogurt.

And congrats to Caren, partly on her upcoming nuptials, but most importantly on being Copyeditor General's Deputy of the Week!

There will be educated people in Harvard Square

2008-07-10T15:31:00.005-04:00

When you think Harvard Square, what images come to mind? Okay, probably one of the following:

Hordes of tourists in matching crimson sweatshirts from the cart in the subway station;
Suburban a-haaaal-turrrnative teens practicing skateboard moves (oops, sorry, they've moved on to parkour now) in the Pit;
An inexplicable line of people waiting to get into the decidedly underwhelming Border Cafe;
Rami Salami

Okay, yes, those are all true. However, the answer we're looking for: Disciplined intellectuals thriving in a world of high educational expectations, with examples of academic excellence and exactitude at every turn.

Right? Harvard, right? Three hundred and fifty years of graduating people like JFK, T.S. Eliot, Benazir Bhutto, Margaret Atwood, W.E.B Du Bois, Robert Benchley? Shouldn't that somehow rub off on the rest of the population?

Maybe the educational vibes just don't make it as far as the offices of harvardsquare.com.

Copyeditor General's ruling:I suppose I shouldn't have such high expectations. After all, some talented and inspiring people may have wandered Harvard Square as students, but so did Antonin Scalia, Alberto Gonzales, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, Phyllis Schlafly, Bill O'Reilly, Ted Kaczynski ...

Fection will be controlled

2008-07-04T11:47:00.007-04:00

Riding the Red Line yesterday, I spotted this ad:

And yes, I learned that it's easier to take photos when the train is not hurtling through a tunnel. Once we reached next station, I was able to get a clearer shot:

How should this have been handled? Take your pick:

QC Pathfinder is the industry leader in infection control
QC Pathfinder is the industry leader[comma] infection control
QC Pathfinder is the industry-leading infection control

And I'm not completely convinced about the last one.

Copyeditor General's ruling: I hope their infection control solution is better than their copyediting. Otherwise it's Outbreak time.

Ingredients will be defined

2008-06-28T17:26:00.003-04:00

Ooh, sometimes I feel like such a hypocrite. See, I just finished writing a review of Mochica, a lovely Peruvian restaurant in Montreal. The food is fabulous, the place is cool, the waitstaff are sweet and attentive.

But while I was checking their website, I found this:

and this:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I understand that English is probably a second language here. But this isn't a translation issue as much as a proofreading problem. And if I hadn't already been to Mochica, I'd be likely to take these typos as evidence that the restaurant was not paying attention to detail. And then I'd have missed out on a plate of lovely llama.

Ice cream sites will not give me the chills

2008-06-26T20:32:00.009-04:00

Ice cream is one of those summer staples that signifies nostalgia and innocence. Even towns otherwise carpet-bombed into chain-store homogeneity often have a mom-and-pop ice cream stand that opens on Memorial Day and serves up dairy delights throughout the season.

These days, of course, nostalgia needs to be upgraded with a website.

Which just means more tasty treats in the error icebox.

Let's start slowly, to avoid brain-freeze, with a basic typo from Lickety's Ice Cream Truck:

And then we'll ease in with another example from the same site, this time from a page of resources for kids. Or possibly just one specific kid.

Because we know how much kids enjoy fan.

The origins of ice cream are much debated (check out the lovely documentary Gelato: An Endless Passion for an overview). But at least we have some idea of the sacrifices of later creative spirits:

How on earth did he keep his balance?

And the prize for tasty typos goes to the Dairy Kastle in Louisville, Kentucky, where the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well:

Probably wise to move away from falvors anyway.

Best of all, though, is the same page's conclusion. Forget the stubbornly consistent refusal to accept the apostrophe. Ignore the fact that the second sentence is a fragment. Disregard the your/you're issue.

What, exactly, does the last sentence mean?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Is it wrong to critique the linguistic abilities of these small seasonal businesses? Should we overlook their typos on the grounds that they're not slick corporations with fancy-pants copyeditors and high-powered MarComm professionals?

Or does the fact that they're providing a service to children (who, frankly, need all the grammatical role models they can get) suggest they should be held to a higher standard?

Ah, it's too hot to think about this stuff.

Anyone fancy an ice cream?

Jack Keefe will be a pitcher, not a signwriter

2008-06-23T13:55:00.002-04:00

Spotted in the barely functioning gym at the HoJos in Portland, Maine:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Pitcher Jack Keefe first came to prominence as the narrator of Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al. Today he maintains a beautiful baseball blog, written in his inimitable style.

But no matter what happens, he should not be allowed near signwriting equipment ever again.

Best Buy will not suck

2008-06-14T06:27:00.003-04:00

There are plenty of examples of Best Buy's poor customer service record. I have nothing to add in that category. But I will take exception to their employment marketing.

Spotted in the window (which explains the dazzling reflection) of the Landmark Center store in Boston:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Let's just hope Best Buy doesn't include English lessons, grammar or proofreading in its list of learning opportunities.

Fro-yo will come in strange new flavors

2008-06-06T14:24:00.004-04:00

And a certain corner café not far from Fenway Park will be the epicenter of tastebud-perturbing creativity. Among their current frozen yogurt offerings:

What would you like to try first? A tour of Reese's places? Perhaps a nice scoop of crackling?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Is the mongo fresh? Then I'll take a small mongo, please.

The keepers of words will know how to use them

2008-05-30T12:11:00.007-04:00

I've already written about the shameless manner in which libraries promote themselves.

Blame, of course, lies not with librarians themselves, but with those responsible for creating their websites.

At least that's what I tell myself when I find things like this, from Simmons College's Beatley Library site:

Too small? Allow me to enhance (read the small print):

Copyeditor General's ruling: Having worked in a university library, I know the daily challenges librarians face: biblioclasm, psychotic co-workers, ghosts. So I'm not going to add to their misery by demanding they also take time to proof their websites. But in the interests of maintaining credibility, don't you think someone should?

Responses will be sought legitimately

2008-05-23T12:57:00.007-04:00

Looky looky: another example of a misheard phrase, the perpetrators evidently never having seen the correct form in writing.

From the District of Columbia's Office of Planning:

From a workshop handout for "experienced educators":

From a junior high school newsletter (!):

From the bio of a college professor (!!):

From (oh, you'll love this) the site of a professional copywriter:

And finally, my favorite, if only because the woman looks as though she has an illicit response in mind:

Copyeditor General's ruling: Homophones can be tricky beasts, it's true. But at the same time, shouldn't context be a clue? The above examples suggest not only that the writers aren't aware of the correct word but also that they don't understand the meaning of "illicit." Or perhaps they do know what it means, but somehow assume it takes on an entirely different meaning in this situation. Either way, they're wrong.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Could I possibly be more explicit?

Sentences will end

2008-05-21T09:12:00.004-04:00

As previously noted, I have nothing against The Guardian, even if I do seem to spend a lot of time pointing out their failings. And I don't go searching for errors; I don't have time to proof every word on their site (though I had assumed someone took responsibility for that task).

Which means either the typos only occur in the few stories I read, or they're everwhere and I'm not seeing all of them.

Today's example is a lovely story about the re-emergence of supper clubs, which ends abruptly in the middle of a quote:

Copyeditor General's ruling: If I'm seeing this at 9am, it means it's 2pm in the UK. Someone needs to lay off the liquid lunches, I think.

The basics will be covered

2008-05-17T08:54:00.003-04:00

I've written before about discovering grammatical errors I didn't even know existed; it's a little like being an archaeologist, except it's less dusty and involves fewer bones. And while archaeologists look for fossils, I find living, breathing, evolving examples of incorrect language use.

Example: this week I received a work-related email newsletter that included the phrase "covered off on the basics." In context, in passing, it sounded reasonable, sort of. But it was also a new phrase to me. Why had I never encountered it before?

And so to Google, to see how many other sites featured the same phrase. None, it turned out, but a number used a similar one:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I suspect this oddity is the result of people mishearing a more common and correct idiom. Can you tell what it is?

Music moguls will control ingenues, not time

2008-05-14T21:17:00.003-04:00

Dragon-boat goddess Ashley, who is seriously in the running to be my full-time deputy, alerted me to the fact that high-powered music industry executives are attempting to control time.

I'm not sure whether this is a scheme to increase the number of weeks a record stays in the Billboard Top 100 (does the Top 100 still exist? Do "records" still exist?) or whether they're trying to prevent the otherwise unstoppable, inexorable progress of mortality. Either way, it seems that, if you're rich and powerful enough, you can make one year last for five.

At least, that's what the BBC News website would lead us to believe, in a story about Mariah Carey's recent nuptials:

Copyeditor General's ruling: In fairness to Mr. Mottola, it's possible he doesn't actually control time; I'm sure one year being married to crazy Mariah Carey just feels five times as long.

Mothers will hang their heads in shame

2008-05-10T09:44:00.007-04:00

Mother's Day is a time to remember all the wonderful things moms teach us: respect, generosity, responsibility; how to tie shoelaces and bake cookies; how to play Blackjack (though maybe that was just my mom).

And what better way to say thank you than with a pretty, heartfelt message?

Or perhaps a lovely gift basket?

There are, of course, other ways to send

Such as, for instance, this doubtless very nice plaque:

Sorry, did I say plaque? I guess the broken image shows something different:

If you want something really special, how about this?

But then again, maybe you don't want to put too much thought into it:

(Suggesting not only that you can get any old crap for Mom, but also that no more thought needs to go into the gift than into writing about the gift.)

Don't forget to include a card to let Mom know how you feel.

Copyeditor General's ruling: I blame the parents.

Websites will be utopian

2008-05-06T12:58:00.008-04:00

Today I'm being Usability-meister General again, though that cabinet position really belongs to someone else.

Imagine this scenario: You go to the zoo and discover that all the enclosures have six-foot walls. And you're five-three (a perfectly lovely height, I might add). You find a zookeeper and ask what's going on.

"Well," she says, "this zoo requires visitors to be tall. If you're not tall, you can use stilts to see the animals. Or, if you'd prefer not to use the stilts, we have a couple of pigeons and a three-legged dog in the parking lot."

Of course, that would never happen; a business that segregated and alienated its customers in such a way would have a terrible reputation.

Online, however, we find things like this:

It's essentially the same attitude. Sure, most computers today handle Flash, and it's no great challenge to download the player. But as an introduction, this page sends an unwelcoming message: we're only making ourselves available to certain people.

And it's not as though the entire Battery Wharf site requires Flash; much of it consists of simple lists of features, short paragraphs of description, a handful of PDFs, links to videos and photo galleries. Nothing, in other words, that couldn't be handled just as easily in HTML, with Flash for the multimedia content.

I understand the philosophy that qualified visitors to this site—those who have a genuine interest in buying a luxury waterfront condo—are more likely to have Flash-ready computers.

But aren't those prospective customers also looking for flawless service? For a company that anticipates their needs? For, let's say, a company whose site checks whether you have Flash and seamlessly serves up the appropriate content (and doesn't make you wait through eight-second loading times)?

Copyeditor General's ruling: If this site is really a reflection of the company's goal of "engineering Utopia," the experience should be a little closer to paradise. And if this project is really Utopia, why does it consist of multi-million-dollar condos on a spit of dockland in Boston?

Promises, not things, will be kept

2008-05-03T10:35:00.002-04:00

More fun with fortune cookies:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I hereby promise everyone five bucks and nice piece of chocolate cake.

Jaguars will not be in charge of punctuation

2008-04-30T09:22:00.005-04:00

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the mysterious "no live parking" command posted outside Stone Zoo.

More recently, I noted the apparent employment of monkeys as signwriters at Franklin Park Zoo.

This weekend, we made our first trip of the year back to Stone Zoo, in part so The Boy could visit his foster son. And we found this errant apostrophe:

And this question (asked so enthusiastically that the formalities of punctuation become unnecessary):

Copyeditor General's ruling: There seems to be a pattern here. Do all zoos allow the animals to copyedit their signage, or is it only in Massachusetts? This requires more research.

No one will love Prais in the springtime

2008-04-28T09:04:00.005-04:00

I'm not deliberately trying to find fault with The Guardian; they just make it so easy for me to do so.

From the April 28 homepage:

Copyeditor General's ruling: I suppose things could be worse; at least they don't call it the City of Lights ...

Update: I think The Guardian has a crush on me. That's the only possible explanation.

From the above article:

This is either the publishing equivalent of insulting me to get my attention, or it's an act of deliberate debasement ("Correct me, please! I need to feel your red-ink wrath!").

Either way, it's a little embarrassing, don't you think?

Why Copyeditor General?

2008-04-26T17:33:00.006-04:00

Recently, someone asked me about the origins of the name of this blog. Why Copyeditor General? Where did it come from?

The urge to correct grammar mistakes and typos has long burned in my veins. I've spent more than 20 years writing and editing. And I've learned that copyeditors don't just take their work home with them: they take their work everywhere. No menu, no store window display, no flyer goes unproofed. It becomes an obsession.

For a while I carried a red pen with me (because you never know where language abuse might occur). But it became increasingly clear that there was only so much correcting a five-foot-three chickie could do.

And then, in 1997, Apple introduced a new ad campaign.

Remember "Think Different"?

It was clever. It was dramatic. It was everywhere. And, of course, it was grammatically incorrect.

Perhaps the campaign's omnipresence offended me the most. When major corporations were flouting basic grammar rules, how were ordinary people supposed to learn (or care about) correct language use?

Every day, as I walked through Kendall Square in Cambridge, I'd pass a billboard with the offending ad. Every day, it made my red-ink-stained fingers twitch. I imagined it was staring down at my helpless street-level frustration and laughing.

And I realized what was needed: the intervention of a higher power.

There should be a government office, I decided, whose role is to correct such large-scale grammar errors.

When I am Copyeditor General, I shall tour the country with an enormous red pen, fixing typos. Like this:

Cute kids will not go barefoot

2008-04-23T12:19:00.005-04:00

Is this what we've come to? Clothing companies, under fire for exploiting children, are now going around stealing the shoes from their feet? And not only that, but they're also specifically targeting adorable tykes?

Spotted on Facebook:

Copyeditor General's ruling: If you see a cute kid wearing a single green Doc Marten, tell him I know where the other one is.

The New Yorker will not test my faith

2008-04-19T06:43:00.006-04:00

I love The New Yorker for many reasons, chief among which is their renowned attitude toward accuracy. Every word is proofed; every fact is checked; every quote is verified with its progenitor.

The graceful writing, the clean editing, and the backbone of truthful reporting allow me to read without fear of encountering typos and grammatical foul play. (Though they also make every Seymour Hersh article about the Middle East extra-depressing, because it's all true.)

So when The Boy said to me last week, "I think I found an error in The New Yorker," (and yes, he said the title in italics, because that's how we work at CGHQ) my heart sank. How could such a thing happen?

It was in the April 7 Financial Page column:

(I'm doing this slowly, because it's so painful. Okay, here goes):

But is it an error? First glance suggests there's a preposition missing from the second sentence: it should read "That will probably mean that we end up with fewer business failures ..."

But this being The New Yorker, which doesn't let me down ever ever (right?), I'm willing to believe (read: hope) that the meaning of the sentence is "That means we, as a society, can self-identify as failures on fewer occasions."

Copyeditor General's ruling: What do you think? Does the sentence make sense without the preposition, or is this a test of my faith in the infallibility of my editorial role model?

Cute animals will not be used as distractions

2008-04-18T12:43:00.007-04:00

From the homepage of April 18's Guardian website:

Awww! How adorable is that otter? The nose! The ears! The whiskers!

Waaaait a second: what's that in the sentence above?

Copyeditor General's ruling: If you insist on having typos on your homepage, you shouldn't try and distract your readers with images of furry animals. What is this, Cute Overload?

Update: Not long after posting this, the offending typo was corrected. Probably by someone unaffected by the soul-owning stare of a baby otter.

Purveyors of words will read their own

2008-04-14T11:13:00.005-04:00

Hello, Amazon.com.

I notice you sell books. Lots of books. (Also bacon salt. That's cool.) I was wondering: do you ever get a chance to read the books you sell? Or are you too busy maintaining and expanding your vast online empire? It would be ironic, wouldn't it, and sad, if you spent so much time shipping novels and dictionaries and DIY manuals out to the world that you were too weary to cast an eye over a sentence or two?

Maybe it's a sensitive subject, in which case, forgive my forthrightness. It's just that I was browsing recently, and I noticed this:

And I thought, Isn't it a shame that a business centered around the written word would allow such things to happen on its own doorstep?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Amazon, you work too hard. Take a break; you stretch yourself too thin. See what happens when you try to do everything?

Online forms will submit to basic language skills

2008-04-12T18:29:00.005-04:00

In my previous ~~rant~~ perfectly reasonable argument, I drew your attention to examples of the ways the web was becoming a breeding ground for new and completely incorrect verb forms, which were appearing with alarming regularity on commercial sites.

Why does this bug me? Two reasons:

I believe a company's lack of attention to detail in language is a reflection of its attitude to its customer base.
I'm concerned that constant misuse of grammar spreads, virus-like, among the population. Consider the number of incorrect uses of the word cliché.

But perhaps I'm being unfair. The web is still young(ish), after all; it's a Wild Westy frontier, where every business, non-profit and dog park is expected to have a presence. It would be unfair of me to expect everyone to understand the finer points of grammatical subtlety.

However, I'm pretty sure I can get on my high horse over this:

Or this, from Sony Thailand:

Or this, from Hartwell Elementary School, Harwell, Georgia:

Or this (extra points for getting it wrong when the correct word is 30 pixels away):

It's not as though "submit" is an unusual word. Anyone who has watched Law and Order or Perry Mason (or Matlock, for that matter) has heard someone submit something into evidence at some point. Anyone who has applied to college has submitted an application. Anyone who has ever watched a WWE match has seen at least one orange-tanned, spandex-clad wrestler sell a submission hold.

So how is it that mistakes like these make it into a public forum? I can only assume it's one of the following:

The writer of the original content doesn't know what the word means.
The site designer or coder doesn't know what the word means.
No one who reviewed the finished product knows what the word means.
Someone realized that the word was incorrect but assumed customers were too dumb to notice.
All of the above.

Copyeditor General's ruling: The only time I should expect to click "summit" is on an interactive map of Everest.

We will not login, lookup or checkout

2008-04-06T16:57:00.008-04:00

Lest you suspect I'm the kind of gal who insists language be frozen Walt Disney-style, fixed and unchanging, allow me to set the record straight. Language is fascinating because it changes; it's the constant evolution, the regional variations, the historical transitions, that make it so much fun.

In the last couple of decades, technological progress has been highly instrumental in changing the way we speak. Think how recently email, podcast and blog entered the vocabulary; consider the way apple, windows and mouse now have completely different meanings. (For that matter, try to remember the last time you listened to a cassette on your Walkman.)

The web is a particularly rich field for new words to germinate, as online tools revolutionize everything from buying groceries to finding a life partner. The problem, however, is that there are so many sites, and so little standardization, that mutant weed-words are starting to take root.

The ones I notice most often (read: the ones that bug me the most) are unnatural mashups of verb and preposition: login, checkout, signup. As adjectives, they're fine; I have no problem with providing my login name or following the signup process.

But as verbs, they constitute language abuse. This isn't evolution; it's laziness.

Consider the following:

Both of the above are fabulous(ly horrible) examples of the basic lack of understanding at play, using the verb+preposition in the right way in one place (Member Login, "Logout" button) and then, apparently, handing the reins over to a bunch of monkeys to finish up.

Then there are sites on which perfectly fine, commonly used words are tied together in what I can only assume is an attempt to cause me personal pain:

Seriously, when was the last time you had to lookup a word? Huh? Ever? And why didn't they just go all-out and label the button "Lookupit!"

This next one makes me sad because I believe the grapes should be freed. But still, the big purple button suggests either that someone considers both fedup and signup to be perfectly legitimate, or that one is correct and the other has been modified for fun.

It's not the modification that bugs me, you understand; it's the fact that both possibilities suggest a disappointing lack of professional writing ability.

Copyeditor General's ruling: As a lookout for lapses in language, I look out for this kind of thing all the time. And I try to follow up with problematic grammar, though my followup might not be immediate. I just hope there's an eventual breakthrough in web language standardization, which will allow us to break through to more elegant online communication.

(And if you know of examples of verb+preposition verbs that will completely disprove my argument and will make me look like a buffoon, please feel free to set me straight.)

English will stand up straight

2008-04-01T15:05:00.003-04:00

Oh, English, I know you must be tired. The constant abuse and negligence you suffer would cause the most stalwart language to slump in resignation. It's hardly surprising that I keep encountering signs of your weariness.

(I won't link to the next one, as it's a right-wing anti-immigration site. Of course, that makes the typo in the discussion about Hispanics who don't learn English all the more hilarious.)

Copyeditor General's ruling: Think about your posture, English. No one likes a slouchy language.

Nothing will dangle. Nothing at all.

2008-03-29T18:20:00.003-04:00

I'm beginning to suspect it's possible to have an entire blog based around things that dangle; modifiers, participles, whatever. They're just so damn prevalent. And it's especially annoying when you understand the intended message and realize the end result is really just laziness.

This sign was in our hotel room in Aruba:

Is the hotel being courteous by thanking us for not smoking? Obviously not; but that's the literal meaning.

And today, this sentence, in (yet another) AP story:

It's a tad small, I know, so let me repeat:

And in Penn Hills, Pa., Nancy Monahan, 54, who creates floor displays for a discount chain, says her "real job" begins in the evening when she returns to her creaky yellow house and her black cat, Maxine, turns on her computer and starts sleuthing.

That, my friends, is one smart cat.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Don't let it dangle. That's how accidents happen.

Students will get some perspective

2008-03-22T07:13:00.011-04:00

Many moons ago, when I was copyeditor of my college newspaper, I noticed an enthusiastic insistence on using the word "perspective" in place of "prospective."

A recent online exploration revealed that nothing has changed.

I know what you're thinking: Hey, they're just kids. They're still learning. Isn't that what college is for? So someone can teach them the right way to do it?

That would be a fine argument, except it appears the grown-ups know no better.

If you enjoy suffering, I encourage you too take a look at this rogue's gallery of similar grammatical affronts. I'd planned to post the whole thing here, but decided the image would take too long to load. Seriously.

We'll meet back here to console each other afterward.

One interesting anomaly is that, quite often, the offending phrase is only in the page title and/or filename.

This suggests one of two possibilities:
1) Most coders don't know the difference between "perspective" and "prospective," even when it's right there in the page content;
or
2) Savvy college marketers deliberately plant the misspelling so the pages show up in search results. Why? Because they recognize that no one knows the difference between "perspective" and "prospective" and may try searching on either one.

I'm not sure which option frightens me more.

Copyeditor General's ruling: The only time I expect to see perspective students is when they're learning about horizon lines and vanishing points.

Thoughts will not go unfinished

2008-03-17T09:18:00.006-04:00

The AP is at it again. In this morning's news was a story about a Chinese government request to make Everest off limits so the Olympic torch can reach the summit unmolested.

Buried in the middle of the article was this intriguing note:

Did someone have more to say about China? Or was the writer having a senior moment, the journalistic equivalent of walking into a room and forgetting what you were looking for?

Copyeditor General's ruling: If there's an editorial counterpart to tying string around one's finger or making a knot in one's handkerchief, I suggest the AP look into it.

Surrogates will not be dipped in soy sauce

2008-03-12T22:29:00.005-04:00

Last week's dinner at Royal East, venerable Cambridge Chinese restaurant, yielded this wise warning:

Yep, I have no idea what it means, either.

On a vaguely cuisine-related note--though admittedly accidental--we find this priceless example of Words Heard But Never Seen, from Slate's presidential-race blog post about Geraldine Ferarro's resignation from the Clinton campaign:

Copyeditor General's ruling: If wonton surrogates have to go, they should be replaced by scallion pancake surrogates. Or perhaps bloggers with a better grasp of linguistic subtleties.

**Update: Someone's paying attention over at Slate--the error is fixed, and respect duly given. Thanks for the love, kids!

There will be no spooky mysteries

2008-03-08T19:37:00.004-05:00

Occasionally in my perusal of online content, I encounter a new error, a mistake I haven't seen before. And deep down in my grammatical gut, I know Something Bad is happening.

Such was the case this week, when I read a user-generated movie review that referred to a parodic film as "a spook of" another film.

A simple slip of the fingers? Not necessarily; hurried typing might produce "spoor" or "spood" or "spoog," but the "k" is on the other side of the keyboard.

Fearing the worst, I did a Google search on "a spook of." Among references to ghostly apparitions and CIA spies were the following frightening results:

What to make of this ghastly phenomenon? Is the word spoof falling out of use, rendering it essentially invisible? Are people reading less, so their exposure to the correct word is minimized? Or am I so out of touch with popular culture that I haven't noticed that The Kids are now using this phrase quite legitimately to refer to lampoons, parodies and pastiches?

Whichever it is, it scares me.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Stop scaring me.

Financial companies will not tax my patience

2008-02-28T12:51:00.006-05:00

As Ben "C-Note" Franklin once said, "In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes."

Which means both are healthily competitive industries. Which means companies have to try a little harder to stand out. Which means, therefore, that they should be veeerrry careful to avoid appearing shoddy and unprofessional.

(You can tell I'm going somewhere with this, can'tcha?)

This is especially true in the case of financial service companies (see, that's where the taxes part comes in), whose credibility lies their mastery of detail.

However.

Exhibit A comes courtesy of the lovely Ashley, whose heightened awareness of grammatical faux pas has earned her the title of Deputy of the Week:

To confirm its correct what, exactly, H&R Block?

Over at A&E Financial Services, there's a two-fer: an errant apostrophe and confusion over whether the company is a singular or plural entity:

Not just an accountant; not a proofreader either.

But at least we should be grateful that someone there knows how to spell accountant, unlike the chaps at Matthews Hanton:

The prize, though, goes to Keith M. Earl, Certified Public Accountant:

Oh, I'm sorry; did I say "Certified Public Accountant"? My mistake.

Copyeditor General's ruling:When your business is built on attention to detail, your expertise in that area should shine through in everything you do. But if you can't be bothered to spellcheck your site, what are the chances you double-check your balance sheets?

News outlets will follow the lead of coffee chains

2008-02-28T11:43:00.007-05:00

Perhaps Starbucks's confusion concerning "less" and "fewer" is forgivable; its people should rightly be more concerned with prompt delivery of my soy latte with sugar-free vanilla than with grammatical niceties.

However, I cannot extend the same benevolence to the Associated Press. While reading this:

I found this:

Oh dear me, Mark Jewell! Dear me again, AP editorial staff! You can spell bacteriophage but you can't follow your own rules?

~~Copyeditor General's ruling:~~ The AP Stylebook's ruling:
fewer, less
In general, use fewer for individual items, less for bulk or quantity.

Coffee chains will make fewer mistakes

2008-02-24T08:42:00.003-05:00

There are two reasons I rarely use a napkin when I go to Starbucks: first, it's an unnecessary waste of paper; second, this:

I don't know whether it's supposed to be a promise, a threat, or an admonishment. Either way, it annoys me every time.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Too much coffee can make one irritable. So can too many grammatical errors. I suggest Starbucks work on making fewer mistakes before they start thinking about fewer napkins.

Ninjas will have totally sweet editing skills

2008-02-17T17:54:00.005-05:00

When I want to ~~rant~~ make constructive criticism on a topic that covers both food and words, I have a dilemma: do I ~~get snarky~~ outline my concerns here or on LimeyG Bends Yer Lughole, my other, more foodular blog?

This week, I wrote about bad restaurant website design on LimeyG. But I also found a site so loaded with typos, it was more suited to sharing here.

Maybe it's not fair to call out Ninja New York for grammatical incorrectness: the management team is Japanese, so can be forgiven for lack of fluency in English. But should that really be an excuse? Were there no proofreaders, no professional writers, no marketing-department members to suggest an edit here or there?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Ninja, I love you. Your creative food, your cozy caves, even the Magicain who asks my table. But please ask someone to take a look at the site before you make any updates. Oh, and please don't come after me with one of those big swords. Domo arigato gozaimasu.

All my exes will live in fear of typos

2008-02-08T20:51:00.001-05:00

Q: What's more annoying than apostrophe misuse?
A: Selective apostrophe misuse.

These cutely titled address books sit in a gift store in Davis Square:

Who does this? Who understands what a plural noun looks like, recognizes that there's no apostrophe--and then decides there must be an exception to the rule?

Copyeditor General's ruling: The correct spelling is exes, as in "I count among my exes many misguided souls who don't own dictionaries."

God will be in the details

2008-02-03T14:49:00.000-05:00

Spotted on College Ave this week:

Is it possible to age in any other direction? Or is this congregation keeping something from the rest of us?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Just because you have extra letters, it doesn't mean you have to use them.

Auslandswörter werden richtig sein

2008-01-29T17:33:00.000-05:00

Denkst du, dass diese Plakat auch in Europa gezeigt ist? Oder ist es nur in den Vereinten Staaten, dass niemand auf Deutsch schreiben kann?

Copyeditor General's ruling: If you don't know how to spell Schlussverkauf, you should just admit it. And then find a good German dictionary.

All online content will be proofread first

2008-01-27T08:03:00.000-05:00

I know: a lofty goal, to be sure. And it would be wishful thinking on a fantastical level to expect every MySpace comment and blog response to be typo-free.

But it should certainly be true of, say, commercial ad copy posted in, say, Facebook--especially when the ad itself is so vague as to be meaningless:

Did they just finish breakfast or brunch?

Okay, perhaps we can excuse this; plucky online entrepreneurs may be so engaged in the whirlwind of their start-up that they forget to check spelling.

Massively successful, Google-owned video-sharing websites, on the other hand, should have a grammar gatekeeper to check for, say, dangling modifiers:

Copyeditor General's ruling: The Copyeditor General considers herself to be more or less completed already, thankyouverymuch.

Chicken will be victorious

2008-01-11T23:37:00.000-05:00

Chicken and steak are approaching the finish line ...

Copyeditor General's ruling: Huzzah!

Thanks for the invitation

2007-12-31T10:30:00.001-05:00

But I'm going to have to decline.

I think we all know why.

Online newspaper editors will lay off the nog

2007-12-26T12:31:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know yesterday was Christmas, and today is Boxing Day, and between the mince pies and sherry and the hourly renditions of "Merry Xmas Everybody" (you know, this one), it's hard to know for sure: was the headline's painful apostrophe in the copy you gave to the designer, or did he throw it in there without thinking?

And why didn't anyone check the finished graphic?

Copyeditor General's ruling: It may not be culinary, but it's certainly one of the year's lowlights, Guardian Unlimited.

Small birds will be monogamous

2007-12-17T16:26:00.001-05:00

I don't know what disturbs me most about this caption: the fact that these three bluebirds have been shacking up for the last two decades, or the fact that this report of avian immorality comes from the BBC News website ...

Copyeditor General's ruling: Hey, BBC online editor! Your participle is dangling!

Your Christmas gift will not be returnable

2007-12-13T16:28:00.000-05:00

Copyeditor General knows what to give you for Christmas (or equivalent). Even though America would probably love Guitar Hero, there are many practical items that the country could really use. Think of them as the grammatical equivalent of tube socks.

To prevent paradigm shifts
Business jargon has slithered its way into everyday language. But new and frightening examples are always being spawned, as this business jargon dictionary demonstrates (facipulate, anyone?).

People who use such words to appear smart (it doesn't work) are getting a business jargon protest gift. Because they need a daily reminder that "our alliance stands alone in demonstrating the extensivity of integrated partnerships with other collaboratives" is meaningless.

To save the future from illiteracy
Between Teletubbies and text-messaging, the Kids of Today are surrounded by painful examples of language use. So Santa CG is bringing them How to Speak Politely and Why, the updated version of Munro Leaf's 1934 Grammar Can Be Fun. It isn't just for Lil' William Safire, but for any kidlet who stands a chance of learning to regard "ain't" and "gimme" with disdain.

The advice is offered gently and charmingly, and the illustrations are in that great '30s pen-and-ink style. Plus, Leaf was the author of Ferdinand, the story of the bull who preferred to sniff flowers than fight. So getting the kids to enjoy Leaf might lead to world peace. Oh, come on, it's Christmas. I can dream.

To show solidarity with other word nerds
They snort when TV talking-heads say mediums instead of media. They redline typos on menus. They reply to your email with the victorious observation that (dammit!) you misspelled a word ("What, exactly, is proofimg?").

They need something that weaves their derision, precision and Schadenfreude into a soft cotton garment, like this "Urge to Edit" shirt with Arthur Evans's (marked-up) quote: "Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy."

To reduce confusion on the cheap
The Plain English Campaign's mission is to eradicate gobbledygook, jargon and misleading language, especially in content created for the general public (example: a sign at Gatwick Airport that reads "Passenger shoe repatriation area only").

Their A to Z of alternative words (PDF) is a handy reminder that "often" is just as clear as "on numerous occasions," and that "quickly" can replace "with the minimum of delay" with no loss of meaning. It will be printed, bound and dropped down the chimney of every bureaucrat, office manager, consultant and communications professional. Ho ho ho.

Copyeditor General's ruling: It turns out you already know what you want for Christmas! According to Ask.com's review of top searches for 2007, the second most common search term this year was "dictionary." I'll leave aside the disturbing news that people are also searching for MySpace and Google (why?) and just say how proud I am that you're making an effort to check spelling and definitions.

American Heritages for everyone! It's going to be a happy Christmas after all!

Word nerds will always get what they want

2007-12-05T16:18:00.000-05:00

As I was coming out of the subway station the other day, I heard a street musician playing the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Actually, playing isn't really the right word. Moidalizing (said in Bronx goon voice) is more like it.

I'm not the biggest Stones fan, but still, this guy's ineptitude really bugged me. How can anyone claim to be a musician and not know the words to the chorus, fer pete's sake? It's not that hard; the song turns up on every oldies station at least hourly. You don't even have to pay attention; you can absorb it, osmosis-style.

I wasn't annoyed that he was ruining my favorite song; I was annoyed because he just. Didn't. Care.

And then I realized I was experiencing the same emotion I feel when I see a poorly constructed sentence, or a heinous typo. And that led to the following revelatory analogy, which may offer insight into my reasons for ranting, and which I encourage you to share with those who claim that good grammar is unimportant:

Think about your favorite song by your favorite band.

Got it? Good.

You've listened to it a thousand times. You'll listen to it a thousand more. It hits you in just the right way. It's perfect.

Now imagine that everywhere you go, you hear cover versions of your favorite song. In stores. In cafes. In the subway.

But every version is just ... slightly ... wrong.

Sometimes the verses are in the wrong order. Sometimes the singer makes up the words--or forgets them altogether. Sometimes the chord changes are out of synch, or go in the wrong direction. Sometimes there's a completely pointless drum solo right in the middle of the most important passage.

You hear it in every supermarket. In every elevator. In every taxi.

Wouldn't that make you a little sad, a little angry? Frustrated that this beautiful, meaningful song was held in such low regard that people couldn't even get the chorus right? That they couldn't take the time to track down the lyrics, listen to the CD, buy sheet music, learn the damn song before they plugged in their guitars?

That's how I feel about misuses of grammar: every time someone writes "perspective" when they mean "prospective," or "cliché" instead of "clichéd," or makes up words (such as "empt" when they mean "apt"--true story), or admits, with a giggle, that they "never really got the hang of punctuation"--also a true story--I feel sad.

Because there are countless methods for learning the tune, endless opportunities to hear it played correctly, a wealth of resources for keeping the beat and hitting the right note.

And yet so many people are content to thrash though a song they can't be bothered to rehearse.

Copyeditor General's ruling: This one goes out to the Davis Square T guitarist: If you can't always get what you want, how is it possible that if you try sometimes you just might find you can't get what you need?

Good URLs will go to heaven (and I'll stop with the puns)

2007-11-28T21:13:00.001-05:00

You know when you meet someone for the first time and you realize it was just meant to be?

That was the mood at CGHQ today with the discovery of Good URL Bad URL, the creation of self-confessed nerd and URL-aholic Aaron Goldman. He knows how URLs should be presented for maximum readability and comprehension, so it drives him nuts when he sees addresses that are broken up, illegible or just way too long.

He takes pictures! He points out what needs fixing! He's a little obsessed! And he's okay with that!

Copyeditor General's ruling: Call off the search for the Associate Copyeditor General in charge of URLs. We have a winner. Everyone else, go read the list of best practices on GoodURLBadURL.com and apply what you learn. Let the poor guy take a break.

True beauty will be in proofread copy

2007-11-25T17:13:00.000-05:00

Despite my best efforts to be a girly girl, I'm not. And when I go to Sephora, the beauty-supply-and-makeup mecca, I feel as though I need to keep my head down and avoid eye contact with the flawless salesclerks, lest they figure out that I don't know my glossing cream from my brightening serum and laugh me out of the store.

So it was with some relief that I noticed this sign while perusing the beauty tools:

"Unique, pinch-free, compact design makes this pinch-free compact design for go anywhere tool."

Yes, ladies, you're very pretty. But you might want to read your display labels before you put them out.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Small, pointless victories are beautiful in the eye of the beholder.

Facebook users will not fear basic sentences

2007-11-22T07:29:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things about Facebook is the status update, the editable sentence that gives a quick snapshot into each person's life at the moment they wrote it. The functionality is set up as $name + "is" + $message, with the mandatory verb forcing a particular sentence structure:

Carolyn is watching leaves fall.
Carolyn is currently catupon.
Carolyn is asking you to vote parmo.

I enjoy the challenge of fitting my spontaneous updates into a predetermined grammatical form. But apparently not everyone does. As reported on the allfacebook blog and covered in news outlets from Wired to Salon to the UK's Daily Telegraph site, Facebook is giving in to user pressure and removing the verb from status updates.

What's the big deal, you wonder? Doesn't this allow for greater creativity, enabling users to say how they really feel instead of being straitjacketed into the third-person singular of to be?

You'd think so. But given that the FB crowd already struggles with the simple "is" format--ignoring it altogether and writing things like "John is I hate school" and "Sarah is got a new job!!!" and "Lucy is can't get TiVo to work"--I don't hold out much hope that this new flexibility will improve their language use.

The discovery of a Facebook group called "I die a little bit inside when I see grammatically incorrect status updates" did assauge my fear that no-one else had noticed.

What bugs me most is that the Facebook group pushing for the change, "Campaign to lose the mandatory 'is' from status updates," has 64,000 members. A population equivalent to the City of Portland, Maine, thinks it's just too difficult to start a sentence with "(username) is" and would rather complain about it than figure out how to work with it.

Copyeditor General's ruling: CG is going to continue using the verb to be in status updates.

Fortune cookies will not need to be told twice

2007-11-17T10:45:00.001-05:00

Oh, come on! Is someone trying to tell me something?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Actually, blind stubbornness seems to be a prerequisite for holders of political office, doesn't it?

Fortune cookies will not pass judgement

2007-11-14T22:32:00.001-05:00

Copyeditor General's ruling: Oh, you want nonverbal cues, pal? I'll give you nonverbal cues, all right!

Steven Seagal will keep his juices to himself

2007-11-10T18:07:00.000-05:00

Has this ever happened to you: it's a sweltering summer day, you're feeling a little tired, and you think--perhaps not for the first time--why hasn't the star of Marked for Death, Half Past Dead and Today You Die created a delicious energy drink?

Well, wake up and smell the goji berries, baby, because I bring good news: he has.

(You can't see it on the still image, but the lines around the logo above actually throw out pulsating bolts of light energy. It's electrifying.)

According to the website for Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt Energy Drink, the neck-punching actor spent years traveling Asia to collect the ingredients for his all-natural beverage.

Unfortunately, someone spent considerably less time creating the website.

I could analyze everything that's hilariously wrong (or wrongly hilarious) about the site, but I'm a busy person. Instead, I'll just point out (and laugh at) the best parts. I invite you to laugh along.

Steven Seagal now can add “Energy Drink formulator” to a list of talents that already includes veteran actor, singer/songwriter, guitarist, and Aikido black belt [...] His album, Songs from the Crystal Cave, released earlier this year, has already hit the pop charts in Europe."

"...hit the pop charts in Europe." Did real well, too.

... Steven Seagal is a popular action movie hero ...

(which is why 11 of his last 17 movies were self-produced and made for video).

... whose films combine spiritual concepts and social/environmental consciousness with high-voltage violence."

He saves cleans up toxic waste *and* kicks a guy in the throat!

What else? Ah yes:

Should I mention the apostrophic nightmare? Moving on:

Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt is an energy drink as unique as the man who created it. It has pioneered the way for nutritional, all natural energy drinks and emerged as many “firsts” ...

Can a single item "emerge as many firsts"? What does that look like? And does it hurt?

The first "first" is that the drink contains the Tibetan goji berry. Little-known fact: this is another name for the wolfberry, which is apparently a common ingredient in energy brews. Here's one, though the name is a little off-putting. But the name of this one actually means wolfberry, which should have been a bit of a giveaway.

It is also one of the very few energy drinks to be offered in multiple flavors ...

Yeah, it's always a good idea to check before making a statement like that. I did. And hey, looky!

XS Gear drinks comes in three flavors, just like Stevie's brew.

Zipfizz also has a trio of taste sensations.

Naked Juice has kicked it up a notch (but probably not using nunchaku).

My favorite is Odwalla; I'm currently celebrating the seasonal return of their Super Protein Pumpkin drink, which tastes like punkin pie and is only available through the holiday season (after which the stupid government takes it away).

But I digress. Suffice it to say that a quick Goog for natural energy drink flavors throws doubt on "first-emergence" claims.

The name "Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt" was an inevitable afterthought?

Okay, kids, as we're online, let's check dictionary.com:

af·ter·thought /ˈæftərˌθɔt, ˈɑf-/ –noun
1. a later or second thought; reconsideration.
2. reflection after an act; an appropriate explanation, answer, expedient, or the like, conceived of too late for the occasion.
3. something added, as a part or feature, that was not included in the original plan or design: The vestry was added to the church as an afterthought.

Or, as it were, the name was hastily appended to the energy drink as an afterthought. Inevitable, really.

When Steven Seagal finished creating a drink that holds untold natural power, there was only one equivalent in nature - The Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt.

Let me make sure I understand: Seagal created a potentially supernatural drink that has only one equivalent in nature: the drink he created. Wow, maybe the man is a god ...

Both mysterious and powerful, it's a symbol of the untold energy the earth has to offer - Such is Steven Seagals Lightning Bolt energy drink.

It's mysterious! It's powerful! Its mystery is exceeded only by its power!

Its name was an inevitable afterthought!

Oh, and I love that the "Latest news" has been updated twice: in October 2005 and January 2006. Overdue for another announcement, aren't we?

Copyeditor General's ruling: While the audience for this beverage undoubtedly expresses a preference for head-butting action and awesome pecs over careful grammar and factual accuracy, and while Steven Seagal could probably turn CGHQ into a pile of smoking rubble in seconds, websites promoting products intended for human ingestion should project a strong, consistent tone of authority and credibility.

Oh, and if some big dude with a ponytail comes around asking questions, you haven't seen me.

The thought will not be what counts

2007-11-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

There's a reason some greetings cards end up in the discount bin. Here's one, supplied by Al, owner of the blog Stuff to Think About:

Gah! All I know is that if any child of mine sent me this awful missive, and didn't do so with a generous side-salad of irony, they'd be written out of the will.

(Wait--I don't have a will. Joke's on them! Ha!)

Thanks, Al, for recognizing, correctly, that this would cause me to shriek in horror. You'd get a Deputy of the Week t-shirt if such a thing existed.

And here's a little something The Boy and I found in Building 19 1/17 a few years back. We got two for a buck, if memory serves.

(The caption under the photo on the notepaper reads Treasure of memory.) I know, one shouldn't mock; this one was made in Korea, so theoretically gets a pass. Not from me, though.

Copyeditor General's ruling: If I ever find Hallmark doing stuff like this, there's gonna be trouble.

Emergency instructions will not cause panic

2007-10-26T22:16:00.000-04:00

Spotted in an elevator:

How many ambiguities can you find, kids? Here's my list:

1) The sentence is hard to parse: I had to read it a couple of times to make sense of it. ("To operate emergency elevator, phone depress button"? "To operate emergency, elevator phone depress, button and hold"?)

2) "Depress button." Do I really have to bring the button down, man? Can't I just press it? Or push it?

3) "Depress button." But which one? Not shown in the photo are the seven buttons on the control panel: the numbers 1 through 4, the "open" and "close" buttons, and one marked "alarm." By a process of elimination, it appears the latter is the appropriate choice. Still, the label suggests it's intended to trigger a noise, not initiate a phone call.

2) "Hold until answering service answers." Um, isn't that what you'd expect from an answering service? And do we really need that extra detail? I suspect someone felt it important to explain that the response wouldn't come from inside the building--that Mr. Stucky Unlucky shouldn't expect help to arrive within minutes. But to me, it suggests an impersonal, and possibly uncaring, distance. Where exactly is this answering service? New York? Ohio? Bangalore?

3) "Indicating your location." Yeah, hello? I'm inside the elevator. I don't remember seeing the details elsewhere inside the metal box, but the info they're looking for--building address, elevator number, or anything else that might help a rescue crew locate a trapped vertical traveler--isn't posted near the sign.

So let's review: you're in the elevator. The doors have closed, you're descending slowly--and then, with a gentle lurch, you come to a halt. You wait a while, panic building (you were the last one to leave the office! It's Friday night! On a long weekend!). And then you read the sign a couple of times, check the buttons, look around to make sure there aren't any other buttons you should push instead, and finally, sadly, depress the alarm. You have a brief conversation with a disembodied voice.

And then you wait.

After a while, you take out a Sharpie and write on the metal wall:

"If you need help, push the "alarm" button and hold until someone answers. You'll be okay."

Copyeditor General's ruling: Signs directing behavior in unusual, unexpected and potentially frightening situations should be simple, clear and devoid of unnecessary detail. Also, it's always a good idea to carry a granola bar. Just in case.

Monkeys will not be employed as signwriters

2007-10-20T21:23:00.001-04:00

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I'm starting to sense a link between grammar and animals:

When you put the two together, one will be wrong.

And as there's no such thing as a wrong animal (apart, of course, from the duck-billed platypus--don't get me started), the wrongness must be on the wordy side of the fence.

For previous evidence, spurious though it undoubtedly is, may I remind you of the "No Live Parking" sign in the Stone Zoo parking lot. And the dog-related signage from a couple of posts back.

And now here's Exhibit C: a trio of signs from Franklin Park Zoo. The first shows a marked reluctance to use the space bar:

I translate this as "Open door slowly; people, perhaps, have gone to heaven."

Next, we have a lesson in stating the obvious:

Because otherwise we'd call it a wall.

Finally, the lamest excuse I've ever seen:

So you can only feed the miniature goats on the days when there's no weather? How often does that happen?

I think this episode riled me especially because zoos (for better or worse) often have kids wandering the grounds. And while their behavior occasionally offends me (the way they scream at skittish animals, bang their tiny, hard fists against glass next to "please do not bang on glass" signs and throw rocks at anything not sufficiently animated to entertain them), I'd still prefer it if they grew up with some understanding of, and respect for, correct language use.

Copyeditor General's ruling: Gorillas should be kept out of the signwriting shop and left to do what they do best: eat fruit, fling poo and create abstract art.

Winners will just be winners

2007-10-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

During the Red Sox-Angels playoff game earlier this week, one of the announcers mentioned that both Josh Beckett and John Lackey were among "the winningest pitchers" in the American League this year.

Winningest.

I yelled at the TV, of course. What was I supposed to do?

Not that this was the first time I've encountered the phrase (or the last; today's Metro GameDay notes that on this day in 2001, the Mariners became "the winningest team in American League history").

But why? No, really, why?

Is the player who steals most bases the stealingest? Is the hitter with the most bunts the buntiest? Is the Gold Glove winner the catchiest?

(Please, no comments about the technical inaccuracy of my examples. Kyle, I'm looking in your direction.)

You get my point, though, right? Is there such a dearth of ways to describe the most capable, the most sucessful, the most athletic and agile, that we're forced to create these mutants?

Oh, you may say, but this isn't made up; it's right there in the dictionary. (Merriam-Webster, how could you?).

I prefer to side with the likes of The Grammarphobia Blog, which notes: "The American Heritage entry classifies [winningest] as 'informal' usage. The 'informal' gives all right-thinking people a good excuse to avoid it."

Copyeditor General's ruling: Don't even get me started on "to medal."

Dogs will have better role models

2007-09-16T15:22:00.000-04:00

Spotted yesterday at the pet groomery:

Mmmm-mmmm! Has anything ever sounded more delicious? But why describe it as "cooked in its own juices"? Doesn't that just mean baked? Or roasted? Wouldn't it have been more compelling to call it roast beef? At least until you notice the section further round that notes it's "in loaf form." Yuuuum-meeee!

What caught my eye, of course, wasn't the utterly unappetizing description. but rather the big fat apostrophe right there in the middle of the can. I guess they assume dogs don't care about punctuation.

This sign is posted in the park near our house:

Of course I understand what it means, but the literal translation is all dogs must be on a leash, and all dogs must clean up after your dog.

I'm all for community collaboration and equality of responsibility, but I have trouble believing that the dogs that, um, patronize this patch of greenspace will start carrying plastic bags and pooper scoopers. Not with all the squirrels distracting them.

Copyeditor General's ruling: If dogs are going to the trouble of learning English, the least we can do is lead by example.

Frozen yogurt will be served

2007-08-29T08:54:00.001-04:00

Some of the best (or worst) examples of poor language skills appear when unexpected circumstances arise and a change in policy, service or process needs to be communicated.

Yesterday I found two lovely examples at the Wrentham outlet mall (where I also found a cool olive green-zebra print jacket, reduced from a ton to a score).

The first was in the food court:

Almost poetic, isn't it?

What I love most, though, is that it doesn't explain why there's a problem.

"So, is your refrigerator broken?"

"No, it's working fine."

"Did you run out of yogurt? I've been here when the coffee stall ran out of milk, and when the sandwich stall ran out of bread, so I thought maybe ..."

"No, no, we have plenty of yogurt."

"So can I have some?"

"Ah, um, no."

"Well, that's inconvenient."

"Yeah, sorry."

Down at the other end of the mall, outside the Village Cafe, was another apology:

Due to the increase in the economy?

It can't mean "due to economic growth" if they need to reduce the discount. Does it mean "due to the need to be economical"?

I asked senior economic correspondent The Boy for his analysis. He had no clue what they were trying to say.

I'm not suggesting businesses need to explain their decisions in excruciating detail; merely that if something has changed--and especially when an apology is necessary--it makes for better customer relations, reducing uncertainty and increasing user confidence, when communication is clear.

Copyeditor General's ruling: When outlet shopping, it's always a good idea to bring your own snack.

The British will not be considered superior

2007-08-27T17:14:00.000-04:00

Last week I was in England, where I discovered that poor signage is a universal blight. And whether a symptom of stereotypical British politeness or just lack of editing skills, there's a tendency to throw more words on a sign than necessary.

The best examples of this were in the local city council offices. However, the prevalence of security cameras made me reluctant to take photos, so I'll have to tell, rather than showing:

MOBILE PHONE USERS

COULD ALL USERS OF MOBILE PHONES
PLEASE HAVE RESPECT FOR OTHER
CUSTOMERS AND KINDLY REFRAIN FROM
USING THEM WHILE CARRYING OUT
TRANSACTIONS AT THE COUNTER.

THANK YOU

Let's put aside the fact that they really shouldn't be using other customers at all, and focus instead on the overall message.

What they really want to say is "hang up your damn phone," but obviously that's much too brusque. But adding the pleases and kindlies and thankyous--and printing THE WHOLE THING IN CAPS--just means more words to wade through to find the useful part. By which time your phone has started playing the Crazy Frog and you're next in line.

And for those who like to believe the British education system is substantially better than that in the US, here's more evidence to suggest otherwise.

Left luggage office at Heathrow Airport (Terminal 3, Arrivals):

Photo caption at the Museum of Hartlepool:

(My mum found that one, so she gets to be Deputy of the Week!)

In a store window, also in Hartlepool:

Apparently it's not enough to mangle the use of "everyday" ...

Finally, a twofer--too many words and poorly punctuated:

Does "dog fouling" refer to making sliding tackles on terriers?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Evidently the problem is greater than I thought. We need to install a CG at the EU.

Insurance will be reassuring

2007-08-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

CGHQ received a letter recently:

You can see a larger version here, but it's so poorly written that I wanted to break it down into sections for easier analysis.

Paragraph one:

Sounds like a warning, doesn't it? "Targeting" is usually associated with fraudulent crime when not used in a marketing sense (which, some may argue, is the same thing).

So should I be concerned about impending victimhood?

Perhaps not; it appears the nameless underwriting company is reducing prices. Or is reducing the prices of other (various) companies. I wonder whether they know about this?

And it's not clear which prices are reduced. Or reduced off. One assumes it's house insurance, but it could be anything, given the apparent variety of other companies involved.

Let's move along.

I always thought it was "avail oneself of" something. At least, that's what the dictionary says. Few things are more irksome than the misuse of highfalutin' phraseology.

And this isn't great from a usability standpoint, either; they're making the reader (the customer) do the work of finding the number himself. Not as much of a gaffe on a printed letter as it would be online, where the trigger finger is always ready to click away if things become complicated, but the problem is the same. The reader has to look for the number (written in a much smaller type size) at the top of the page.

Would it have been so hard to repeat it in the sentence? Or to include the contact name here, instead of two lines later?

But perhaps everything will be okay. They kinda sorta guarantee it. Maybe.

Would have been a great pun if they were offering legal help with inheritance distribution. But they're not. So it's either an attempt at sarcasm or a not-so-subtle Sopranosesque threat.

And then, to close: nothing. No "Thank you for your time," no "With best wishes"--not even a "Yours, etc." It's a letter from no-one, pulled from the printer and whacked into an envelope with as little effort as possible. Three out of four paragraphs start with the same word--"please"--but that's as close as this company comes to trying to make nice with their prospective client.

On the positive side, at least there are no typos.

Dinner will be tasty and typo-free

2007-08-07T08:34:00.000-04:00

Typos in menus: could there be a better way to combine my favorite pastimes? Here's a roundup of some of the best.

Would you prefer to order from the ala cart menu (as offered at the St. Louis Hyatt) or the prefix menu (as offered at Ricardo Steakhouse in NYC)?

Which begs the question: is there such a thing as a suffix menu? Would that be dessert only?

Tempo in Alexandria, Virginia, takes a different approach with their "price-fix" menu, which I assume is an attempt to sell all dishes at the same price as competing restaurants.

Let's begin ...

Mescaline salad--theoretically, this has been illegal since 1970. Yet it keeps cropping up on menus everywhere. Shouldn't the DEA do something about this?

Not in the mood for salad? How about a nice piece of beef? Or possibly jungle cat?

Perhaps something from the sea?

(Will also bring your car around after the meal.)

And now would you like to see the desert menu?

Oh, but you know I'm not the only one who obsesses over this stuff. There are so many eagle-eyed diners out there ...

"World's best" will not be a regional distinction

2007-07-30T12:27:00.000-04:00

In the market for a sparkly something to wear to our Texas wedding, I wandered into So Good, a magpie's dream of a costume jewelry store in Boston. Oh, they have everything: oversized Lisa Simpson-style bead necklaces, diamante anklets, lucite bangles, pendants with skulls and kitties and crosses and guitars and hearts and stars ...

Perhaps, then, they're justified in claiming to be the best in the world. Or the best in Boston. Or is it the best in the world, Boston division?

Socio-political criticism will be proofread first

2007-07-29T11:36:00.000-04:00

On the back of a truck in the parking lot of the Christmas Tree Store, Salem, New Hampshire:

Hilarious, no?

But here's the thing: I had a conversation a few weeks ago with a friend who's studying linguistics. He suggested that another word for grammatical stickler was "snob."

Yes, he was playing devil's avocado a little, but his point stands: is it fair to highlight the educational failings of others, to hold them up to the light and laugh? Haven't we all sent work with egregious typos out into the world, sometimes not noticing our mistakes until eagle-eyed friends (yeah, thanks, Kyle) have brought them joyfully to our attention?

So no more mockery of individual, personal grammatical goofs.

However, anything produced by professional organizations for public consumption is still fair game. Such as this sign at Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire:

Texas websites will be messed with

2007-07-16T16:53:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we fly down to Texas for some family wedding-style fun, so recently I've been site-hopping, looking for event schedules, restaurant reviews and visitor information. As a result, I've encountered sites at all levels of usefulness and professionalism.

At the "nicely executed" end of the scale is austintexas.org, a lively, detailed collection of info, including a fun interactive map of Austin that lets you flag relevant attractions and leap from one location to another like a giant virtual kangaroo.

At the "please tell me this is some kid's homework" end of the scale is riverwalkguide.com, the homepage intro of which begins thus:

"Welcome to the San Antonio River Walk Guide. Your guide to everything along the River Walk and the Downtown San Anotnio area. "

So we start with a sentence fragment and a typo? Fabulous! I would be generous and assume the latter is intended to pick up search results from a mis-typed keyword were it not for the fact that the site has more errors, grammatical inaccuracies and flat-out oversights than should be legal for a promotional communication.

Fiesta survival tips: "From what to wear, where to park, its al its all here."

The River Walk Planner: "Create your very own River Walk Plan. Browse the San Antonio River Walk and nver lose track of where you plan to stay, places to see, and much more Get Stared Now!"

In an attempt at personalization, the site includes functionality to allow visitors to create an itinerary. However, the developers' coding and database skills only go so far, as is evident from this warning at registration:

"DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSWORD - You can not retrieve your password and we can not recover it for you. Sorry, just please don't forget."

Best page on the site, though, is "Top 10 things to bring to San Antonio." Extra kudos for the warning to bring antacid ("this is so you can enjoy San Antonio’s spicy Tex-Mex food and tangy margaritas without grief") and the caveat that cash machines may try to rip you off ("Save money by not having to use the ATM’s").

The final tip on this page:

"10) Sun Block because if your not use to the South Texas Sun"

Oh, but I'm not use! What will happen to me?

Copyeditor General's ruling: Someone desperately needs to mess with Texas. Or at least San Antonio. Or at least riverwalkguide.com.

Oh, style guide bonus: the editors should figure out whether they're promoting the River Walk or the Riverwalk or the RiverWalk.

Websites will not be (d'oh!) under construction

2007-07-11T08:59:00.001-04:00

Forgive me for turning this into "When I am Usability-Guy General" for a while, but I just saw the website for The Simpsons Movie.

Given that the film opens in 15 days, and that the publicity machine is already cranking at full speed, is it crazy to expect that the promotional website would be ready? *

The site has a very cute tool for creating your own avatar: how you would look if you lived in the Simpson's universe. And then you can explore Springfield, visiting the town hall, the Kwik-E-Mart and the Simpsons' home.

Here I am at Moe's Tavern. I think Homer likes me.

But hold on a moment: I should say you will be able to explore Springfield one day. For now, you can only get as far as the bar (oh, just like real life!). Everything else is unfinished.

The same is true for the "About the film" section: the only info currently available is a two-sentence synopsis that doesn't tell us anything we don't already know (Homer is stupid! The movie is animated! It's based on a TV show!). The "cast and crew" and "production notes" sections are either not written or, more likely, are still going through the legal/approval process.

Mobile and partnership info? Also coming soon.

Now, I'm sure that most of the audience for this movie won't notice or care about such things. There are trailers and games and downloads enough that a few non-functioning pages can be forgiven.

Not by me, though. And not, I'm sure, by usability guru Jakob Nielsen, whose 1994 Web Usability Study found this:

Users distinctly disliked seeing "under construction" markers. As one user put it, "either the information is there or it is not; don't waste my time with information you are not giving me." Users were particularly aggravated when they had linked to a page only to find that it was under construction. One user said "At least give me something for going to the page; don't put it out there if it is not working."

And that was written way back in the Internet's Dark Ages--you know, when The Simpsons was funny.

Copyeditor General's ruling: simpsonsmovie.com is a high-profile marketing tool, produced for a major corporation to promote a globally recognized brand. The least they could do is show a little professionalism.

Mmm ... professionalism ...

*And yes, I do assume that this is a temporary issue, and that this post will be redundant within a few days. At least I hope so.

Edit: The movie has now been released, and the previously unavailable areas are now all working. Except one.

Apostrophe on the stand again

2007-07-07T06:36:00.000-04:00

Evidence against the accused comes from a Craigslist posting.

Yes, your honor, I'm aware the source means it may be inadmissable in court.

Craigslist is an oversized community bulletin board where anyone can post anything (case in point, my favorite listing ever, from the 18+ Casual Encounters section: "Man with duck fetish seeks lady with duck costume").

But one would still expect a more careful eye to detail, given the listing's origin:

The Christian Science Monitor is re-launching it's web site, www.csmonitor.com. We have an exciting opporutnity for a Web Designer!

(Note the bonus typo.)

Now, I know the Monitor, and it's rare to see a glitch in the copy. The newspaper has a reputation for striving for excellence as well as for editorial neutrality.

Could they be taking a Jeffersonian position on the matter?

In Made in America, Bill Bryson writes: "Jefferson always wrote it's for the possessive form of it, a practice that now looks decidedly illiterate. In fact, there was some logic to it. As a possessive form, the argument went, its required an apostrophe in exactly the same way as did words like children's or men's. Others contended, however, that on certain common words like ours or yours it was customary to dispense with the apostrophe, and that its belonged in this camp. By about 1815, the non-apostrophists had their way almost everywhere, but in 1776, it was a fine point, and one to which Jefferson clearly did not subscribe" (p. 43).

Is this the case here? Only the Monitor knows for sure.

Anyway, I've been rethinking my stand on the banishment of the apostrophe, especially as there are loyal lovers of punctuation struggling to keep it alive. The Apostrophe Protection Society, under the stewardship of retired journalist John Richards, collects examples of its misuse for all the world to see.

And over at Flickr, there's a whole pool of apostrophic crimes in which to wade.

So while flagrant misuse of this punctuation perturbes me, I'll consider rescinding my previous ruling. As long as there are bands of guerrilla grammaticians out there, working to promote the apostrophe's correct use, I shall allow myself to dream of a world in which even national newspapers can get it right.