The Editors' Weekly
Official blog of Canada's national editorial association
The Editors' Weekly
Navigation
  • About the Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Articles en français
  • editors.ca
  • reviseurs.ca
You are here: Home › Entries tagged with "Wasted Words"
Currently browsing tag

Wasted Words

Wasted Words: Professionalism

August 27, 2019 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

My phone chimes. It’s one of President Donald Trump’s people. Desperate Donald has written a book he hopes will cinch his re-election next year. But it needs a good editing. Can I do this? Of course I can. The question is, will I? The Donald is not my favourite politician. …

Wasted Words: The Risks of Reading

May 21, 2019 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

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 …

Illustration of a bird's-eye view of four people in corporate attire working at desks that have been arranged into square shape with all the workers facing inward.

Wasted Words: The Torments of Editing

March 19, 2019 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

When I began writing this article I knew, like most of you, that editing is an unhealthy occupation. It’s so fraught with hazards it’s a wonder anyone will sell us health or life insurance. We sit long hours, our work is mentally taxing, we stare at monitors, our physical effort …

Illustration of red and green holiday ornaments, each with a picture of holly, hanging against a blue background with white polka dots.

Wasted Words: The Rebound of Christmas

December 11, 2018 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

Have you noticed how Christmas is sneaking back into respectability? Three decades ago school Christmas concerts and office Christmas parties began to disappear in apparent deference to multiculturalism. Even the word for this feast was proscribed. I promptly fell into line. Everyone should feel welcome, and I acknowledged that Christianity’s …

Wasted Words: Sows’ Ears as Silk Purses

October 30, 2018 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

I was amused to read that some Hamilton landlords, faced with a public relations crisis, want to rebrand themselves as rental housing providers. They feel landlord has too many negative connotations, imputable to its medieval traditions; landlord also suggests a “callous and wealthy man collecting cheques each month and doing …

Wasted Words: A Paean to Poetry

August 14, 2018 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

Good poetry, I believe, projects the essence of culture. It conveys profound concepts and articulates observations while captivating the listener with its beauty and power. It does this with a matchless performance of words that blend language with wisdom. The listener is both enlightened and entertained. Bad poetry, on the …

Wasted Words: Exploration or Exploitation?

May 15, 2018 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

At times this blog can set off a chain reaction. When Anna Williams wrote about childhood reading, I began exploring my fading cranial archive. Anita Jenkins focused my search with her comments on Grey Owl’s cultural appropriation. I must confess that a lot of the books of my youth would …

Wasted Words: Salvaging a Thesis

March 20, 2018 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

In the past I refused students seeking a thesis editor — mainly for ethical reasons. The preamble to the Editors Canada “Guidelines for Ethical Editing of Theses / Dissertations” states: “In part, academia uses theses as a way of testing the ability of students, especially graduate students, to use written …

Wasted Words: On the PC Front

December 5, 2017 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

The Grey Cup eluded the Edmonton Eskimos again this year, but that’s not the worst of the team’s troubles: the political correctness refs want it to lose its name as well. The club chose its regrettable label in 1949, but it had been widely used by other Edmonton football squads …

Wasted Words: Verbal Abuse

September 19, 2017 | Filed under: Wilf Popoff

There are many writers and, apparently, more than a few editors who think that to be and some of its conjugations are not actual verbs. I regularly encounter headings like this: Blabworth is Picked to be Next Publisher. This grammatical confusion is exposed in titles using the conventional upper and …

Next Page →

What we’re talking about

Aaron Dalton author-editor relationship authors book editors book publishing communication copy editing editing editing tools editor editor's role editor advice editorial skills editors editors at work Editors Canada conference français freelance editing freelance editors freelancing French grammar interview James Harbeck language letter from the editor linguistics Linguistics Frankly Marianne Grier marketing networking plain language professional development proofreading publishing Rosemary Shipton révision style translation usage Wasted Words Wilf Popoff word choice writers writing

Email subscriptions

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,049 other subscribers

Most recent posts

  • Social Media Content Management for Self-Employed Editors and Writers
  • Combining Careers, Part Two: Rewards — Financial and Other
  • Editing Indigenous Writing: A Nuanced Partnership
  • Encouraging Coworkers to See the Benefits of Editing
  • Meeting “In Real Life”: Conference 2023

Archives by month

By author

Follow Us Online

Facebook  Twitter  Flickr  RSS Feed

www.editors.ca

The Editors' Weekly is the blog of Editors Canada.

Report an error or a typo

Email us at blog [at] editors.ca

© 2023 The Editors' Weekly

Powered by One Designs