style questions

Well, as I said, the shops I've worked at have rules about not cleaning up quotes at all, including allowing "gotta" and "gonna." I think, if I were to run my own publication, those types of decisions would be group discussions. I advocate for not making people look unintelligent, with some exceptions including public speaking.

 

OK.

I got to go.

 

I'ma go now, too.

 

Really? Mine cited the AP stylebook as saying it's verboten, but perhaps it was their interpretation.

 

Again, from the other thread:

At our shop, there is an ironclad rule that I am totally on board with: no gonnas or gottas. We had a writer here for a short time who invariably had at least one of those in just about every story. He was here less than a year but I cannot begin to count the number of times I called him to explain that at this paper, gonna and gotta do not get into print. That's our style. Then he'd put two more in his next story.


On to another topic...

During the past few years, I've noticed more and more writers using the word "amongst." Guys, it's 2012, not 1612. Shakespeare is dead. The word is "among."

Same goes for "leapt." It's "leaped" in this century.

 

Too many people think if spellcheck accepts it, it must be correct.

Then again, some people don't even bother with spell check. A news reporter wanted to use "whittling" in a story last week. Rather than try to look it up, she typed "witteling" and went on her merry way. I called her to ask about it and got her voicemail.

Things like this used to bother me, but then I discovered a great way to combat it -- I cut the sentence from the story. Problem solved.

 

I got chewed out so hard by a college adviser for telling someone in the newsroom that rappelling was spelled "repelling." From that day on, I never, ever answer a question without looking up the answer first.

 

Man, I'm sorry, but you handled that so unprofessionally. I'm a pretty big asshole, but I would never do that. You don't call out a reporter for a spelling, grammatical or stylistic error unless you can't figure out what the fix should be. They make errors, and we fix them. If they stopped making errors, we wouldn't have jobs. And we'd be making errors on their side of the desk, too. No reason to make someone feel like a dick. Furthermore, cutting a sentence as a method of rubbing a mistake in someone's face is even worse. In that case, you're potentially harming your product.

Fix the mistake, snicker about it with fellow copy editors, never tell any bosses and never tell any reporters, including (or especially) the one who made the mistake. If you're line editing, that's a different story.

 

Who did I call out? I was the first read on the story. I had a legitimate question, so I called the reporter's cell phone. When she didn't pick up, I removed the sentence in question. I didn't send a mass email to the rest of the office, and I didn't tell any of the other bosses.

 

Your "legitimate" question had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with your being upset that she made the mistake.

If you to call her on it later, fine. But you cut a sentence out of spite. That's awful.