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Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Facts and Fiction: Grammar Vampires and True Crime

Tuesday June 30, 2015

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed By Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Pantheon Books, 1984, 1993. Wild, wacky, inventive grammar guide continues to educate and amuse The opportunity to review the new edition (1993) of Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar […]

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book reviews Facts and Fiction grammar

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Wasted Words: How Language Sometimes Evolves

Tuesday July 7, 2015

I’m aware of the organic nature of living languages and their need to adapt. If I forget, a glimpse of Chaucer brings me up short. His poetry shows just how much a language can change in six centuries. The remarkable capacity of English to absorb fresh concepts and to express new ideas and technology enables […]

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definitions English language evolution of language usage Wasted Words words

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Dwain Richardson

English Editing in Quebec: What’s Translatable, What’s Not?

Tuesday July 21, 2015

If any of you copywrite, edit or translate for federal clients, you’ll know that most department, agency, union and attraction names have official translations. Department of National Defence Canadian Media Guild Canadian Museum of History National Gallery of Canada National Arts Centre Citizenship and Immigration Canada Royal Canadian Mounted Police ministère de la Défense nationale […]

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government editing place names Quebec

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May I Help You?

Tuesday November 3, 2015

“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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client-editor relationship communication satisfying clients Sue Archer

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Wasted Words: Quarrelling With Pronouns

Tuesday April 12, 2016

Around the time the Great Flood started to recede I was taught to write, “Everyone must remove his shoes.” Funny how boys aren’t bothered by such preferential usage of male gender pronouns. Back then feminism was a feature of the French Revolution and the current usage of politically correct had yet to surface. Mostly the […]

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gender equality gender-neutral pronouns language change pronouns Wasted Words Wilf Popoff

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A Whole Nother Thing

Tuesday May 17, 2016

As editors, we pay attention to the written form of our language. Its relation to the spoken form is a whole other thing. The spelling is odd, we know. But even our hyphenation doesn’t really break according to pronunciation. Consider the word breaking. Where do you hyphenate it? Break-ing. But where does the syllable break […]

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false splitting James Harbeck language change Linguistics Frankly pronunciation rebracketing

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Know Your Subject, Watch That Continuity

Tuesday August 9, 2016

Blam! Blam! Black Sombrero fired his Colt .45 at the shadow in the barn, then spun and snapped three shots at the posse approaching across the coral. Zing! A shot from behind creased his shoulder, and he wheeled back, fanning four quick shots at the figure in the gaping doorway. Snick. Damn, he was empty! […]

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book editors continuity editor's role fiction Paul Cipywnyk

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Virginia Durksen

The Inner Editor: Introvert, Know Thyself

Tuesday November 8, 2016

Just after parlour games went out of fashion, but before Facebook, a self-employed editor might have used her idle hours for professional developments and introspections of various sorts. In particular, one such editor might have noticed that her clients had entire Human Resources departments dedicated to circulating questionnaires to help people realize who they were […]

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editor's personality Inner Editor introverts Virginia Durksen

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Where the Ink Meets the Road — Insights From Working In a Bookstore

Tuesday November 15, 2016

I’ve recently picked up a few shifts a week at a bookstore, receiving and stocking while I think about where I want to go with my career. As a longtime editor, it’s giving me a different view of the book world. The logistics alone are impressive. Early every morning we arrive to new skids of […]

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books bookstore customer relations distribution marketing Paul Cipywnyk product placement

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Calling Them What They Want

Tuesday December 13, 2016

We’re all professionally attentive to detail, so I’m sure we all appreciate that, having earned a PhD, I am technically Dr. Harbeck, and it could be rude to call me Mr. Harbeck. My wife, having a master’s, is Ms. Arro — not Miss Arro, because she’s married, and not Mrs. Arro, let alone Mrs. Harbeck. […]

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gender-neutral pronouns James Harbeck Linguistics Frankly political correctness pronouns