THE EDITORS' WEEKLY

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Dwain Richardson

English Editing in Quebec: All About Style

November 17, 2015 by Dwain Richardson | 9 Comments on English Editing in Quebec: All About Style

Whenever you do a concordance reading or translation, you certainly notice that the two or more languages you are working with show many stylistic differences. English and French are no strangers to this phenomenon. For instance, have you observed that French texts and translations are often longer than texts written in or translated into English? […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: Don’t Meddle With Shakespeare

November 10, 2015 by Wilf Popoff | 4 Comments on Wasted Words: Don’t Meddle With Shakespeare

You might think that, as an editor, I would endorse a plan to rewrite Shakespeare in modern English. After all, as the advocates of this undertaking argue, Shakespeare’s language cannot be understood by contemporary audiences, and our profession is all about understanding. However, this has little to do with editing. If Shakespeare’s writing comes across […]

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Sue Archer

May I Help You?

November 3, 2015 by Sue Archer | 6 Comments on May I Help You?

“Hello, Ms. Client? I’m Sue Archer from Customer Relations, and I’m calling to follow up with you about your complaint.” I’ve performed a number of difficult jobs in my life, but by far the most challenging one was a call centre role where I dealt solely with complaints. Every day it was my job to […]

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James Harbeck

Be on the Ball With the Origins of Phrases | Linguistics, Frankly

October 27, 2015 by James Harbeck | Leave a Comment

My topic today may seem a bit ribald, but I’m sure you’ll have a ball with it. It’s about monkey business with the origins of phrases, and how to make sure you stay on the ball and don’t hit a wall. People love stories about the origins of words and phrases, but many of them […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Real E-Books

October 20, 2015 by Rosemary Shipton | 19 Comments on Real E-Books

E-books are everywhere these days, but how many of them are real e-books, written specifically for that medium? Not many. Most are simply traditional print books that are available on a different platform. At best, like a DVD, they have a few bonus features tacked on at the end or, in the case of children’s […]

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Victoria Neufeldt

Undue Care and Attention

October 13, 2015 by Victoria Neufeldt | 4 Comments on Undue Care and Attention

Are you ever guilty of writing with undue care and attention? If you didn’t spot the clunker in the preceding sentence, prop your eyes open and attend! We think we know the language and may even make our living by writing and editing, but the ways to slip up are infinite, providing sport for many […]

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Paul Cipywnyk

Tips for Dealing with Freelance Isolation

October 6, 2015 by Paul Cipywnyk | 7 Comments on Tips for Dealing with Freelance Isolation

Freelance editors are a mousy, introverted, cat-loving lot. They’re pale creatures who are often confined to mouldy basement offices where they stare with glazed eyes at glowing computer monitors, barricaded from the world by stacks upon stacks of dusty tomes. Right? Ha! If that’s what you think, you’ve never been to an Editors Canada conference. […]

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Dominique Fortier

Biais, biaiser/biaisé, par le biais de

September 29, 2015 by Dominique Fortier | 2 Comments on Biais, biaiser/biaisé, par le biais de

  Biais Le nom biais est, comme bien d’autres, susceptible de nous faire trébucher lorsque l’on a à l’utiliser dans une phrase. D’un côté, on peut l’employer sans crainte lorsqu’il a, par exemple, le sens de « ligne oblique, oblique » (ex. : Elle a taillé la flèche en biais.). De même est-il correct dans le sens de […]

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Sue Archer

Review: Correct English: Reality or Myth? by Geoffrey Marnell

September 22, 2015 by Sue Archer | 4 Comments on Review: Correct English: Reality or Myth? by Geoffrey Marnell

I’m sure all of us, as editors, have encountered heated discussions about the notion of “correct” English. It’s an inescapable occupational hazard. With the prescriptivists in one corner and the descriptivists in the other, the debate continually rages on. I was curious to know if Geoffrey Marnell would bring anything new to the discussion with […]

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Dwain Richardson

English Editing in Quebec: Mind Your Noun Strings, Please!

September 15, 2015 by Dwain Richardson | Leave a Comment

If you regularly work with French copy, you know that French emphasizes nouns more than English does. This results in our Gallic official language constantly using noun strings — that is, strings containing several nouns in a row. They will often take the form [noun] + of + (the) + [noun]: la gestion de la […]

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