Because I was a confirmed reading addict when television appeared, it failed to dislodge my teenage obsession. Like Groucho Marx I found the idiot box “very educating”: “Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” It’s been a relentless dependency. I …
When I was at school, I learned a poem in Irish called ‘Tháinig Long ó Valparaiso’ by Pádraig de Brún (it’s actually …
I teach plain language workshops, and I was recently approached by a non-native English speaker. His language skills were excellent. He said …
The new “essentialism” is having a moment. While many of us have been trying to cram in more — to fill every …
This post is part of a new series of case studies by and for in-house editors. The focus of this series is on …
I have been retired, or semi-retired, for almost a decade now. My career as a freelance writer and editor has gradually given …
At the ACES conference in Providence, Rhode Island, in late March, the Associated Press announced changes to their recommendations for handling numbers …
As editors, we tend to comfort ourselves by thinking that we have everything under control, because what is editing? It’s controlling the …
Those who read are an exacting bunch. We grew up with professionally proofread books, back when publishers could still afford to pay …
When I began writing this article I knew, like most of you, that editing is an unhealthy occupation. It’s so fraught with …