My editing pet peeve - what's yours?

Me neither.

 

Eight pages and no one has mentioned the one that annoys me most. Names as adjectives.

The Lakers won the game on a Kobe Bryant dunk with 1.2 seconds remaining.

A name is a proper noun. Please treat it that way.

 

That's a solid gottawrite post there.

 

Exactly. Same reason I use "12 p.m." instead of "noon" in our TV listings, even though it goes against AP style. All the other times in the listings are listed as numerals, and I think in a breakout like that it makes more sense to continue that pattern. Plus, I think people make the cognitive connection to numbers faster than they do with letters.
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That might be true, and there's nothing wrong with doing it that way as long as you're consistent ... but ... there are still plenty of imbeciles out there who think 12 p.m. is midnight, and would get confused. "Noon" eliminates that confusion.

 

Why?

 

In swimming I've seen "The 50-yard Freestyle event."
(Note that to the writer, the name of the event is a proper noun).

 

Writers who can't seem to understand that you don't say "he made 4-of-5 3-point attempts." It's "he made 4 of 5 3-point attempts." And you don't say "he was 4 for 5" but "he was 4-for-5."

I've softened on host as a verb but still hate it. (I'm still waiting to see "The Lady Vols hostess the Lady Monarchs.")

 

You're wrong on the last part, as has been discussed in depth on this thread.

 

He's correct on both parts.

 

"The (blank) area."

I can handle this when discussing metropolitan areas, because cities do have spheres of influence beyond the city limits, and it isn't precise where that ends. So a constrcution such as "the Atlanta area" works.

But the trend now is to expand that to counties, states and even regions. ex: "The California area is experiencing a drought." There is no "California area." Either it is a part of the state or it isn't.

 

Agreed. 4 of 5, but 4-for-5.

Yup. I have major problems with the capitalization of titles when it isn't warranted. We'd be a lot better off if everyone just followed the rule of thumb that if you have ANY question whether something should be capitalized ... don't.

 

Is "California area" similar to the idiotic "overnight hours" or "afternoon hours" phrases used by television weatherboobs?