Crash Course in Copy Editing

>>>You get your foot in the door on the desk and work your way up<<<

that's such a ridiculously stupid comment.

 

"Irony is a state of affairs that is the reverse of what was to be expected; a result opposite to and in mockery of the appropriate result.

"For instance: a diabetic, on his way to buy insulin, is killed by a runaway truck. He is the victim of an accident. If the truck was delivering sugar, he is the victim of an oddly poetic coincidence. But if the truck was delivering insulin, ah! Then he is the victim of an irony."

-- George Carlin

 

From a story from the AJC that moved on the wire tonight:

NOT IRONIC.

 

Now, if Michael Vick were to get mauled by one of these very dogs that he owns just for fighting, would that be irony? Or just wishful thinking?

 

That would be a benevolent god.

 

Fucking writers. Buncha damned whiners.

 

Some people do this because they want validation that they made the right call, some do it for entertainment, some do it to be assholes, some do it because they want credit for the save and the person running the desk might not know about it otherwise, some just blurt out whatever's on their mind and mistakes they catch are just part of their incessant chatter. I agree with you and learned after some years on the desk to speak privately with people (although under deadline pressure I'd sometimes blurt), but not everyone who does this is spiking the football after a TD.

 

Wait...some of you read copy with the writers in the building?

90 percent of our writers either work from home or are gone by 4 p.m. when I get in.

 

Explain, please.

 

Same here.

Doesn't take much for me to pick up the phone, but if it's something I can handle myself I will. I'm not calling you to ask if I can take out "ironic" when it's used incorrectly.

 

An example of this might be switching any misuse of the word "over" in many cases. You don't win games "over" someone, you win games "against" someone. And then there's "over" when it should me "more than."

That word is misused so many times in so many ways.