Comments on: On Editing: Style

By: Amie

Amie — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:56:04 +0000

To confuse things more for you (ha!), in the fine art of teaching Art, we only refer to it as free-form, as in, “Picasso painted with organic, free-form shapes.” So when I see it any other way, I just want to break out a pencil and start throwing in hyphens all over the place.

By: Amie

Amie — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:56:00 +0000

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:22:30 +0000

@Nina Piper: In blogging and writing email, I find I nest parentheticals oddly frequently. @EL: As soon as we moved to Canada, I started automatically spelling like a Canadian. One more thing that makes the man think my being American was an accident of birth. Also, I find it hard to filter out Canadian spelling in my work for the magazine. Also, @Kim: Interweave follows the Chicago Manual of Style, which supports use of the serial comma (so the man pointed out to me). As I said, I don't argue this one when it comes to the magazine. In my personal work, though, I use the serial comma as infrequently as possible.

By: Kim Werker

Kim Werker — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:22:00 +0000

By: EL

EL — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:43:44 +0000

Yes, this is satisfying! Thank you for discussing it. Good copyediting makes the magazine look professional. Punctuation, used accurately, helps express the tone and even the body language. That’s strange about “ravel”; the first definition in my dictionary says “to separate or undo the texture of: UNRAVEL.” Suggesting that “unravel” is preferable. ?? P.S. How did you adjust to Canadian (British) spelling? ;-)

By: EL

EL — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:43:00 +0000

By: Nina Piper

Nina Piper — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:05:00 +0000

Commas are overused, but as you said, it’s nice to have an indication that the reader should pause. I’m also not a big fan of parenthetical statements, although obviously they’re not as offensive in blogs and other personal writing created in a write-as-you-think style. I think freeform works best as one word, because it is a legitimate word. The hyphen extends the word by one character, but doesn’t add any value to the sentence :)

By: Nina Piper

Nina Piper — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:05:00 +0000

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:31:19 +0000

@Michelle: I knew it would come up! I almost mentioned it in the post. What's your take on it? At this moment I'm not a fan of the serial comma, and my reasons are a preference for minimalism and a personal challenge. If the context indicates a list, the serial comma is pretty much just redundant decoration and should be nixed. If the context is a bit more vague or if the contents of the list require further indication of distinction or disambiguation, then I'm all for using it. Also, a comma in any place is important for indicating prosody (such a good word; one I'd forgotten about before skimming the article I linked to above). So if the pacing of a list needs a pause, give it a comma. My personal challenge is simply to try to use fewer commas. I realized a couple of years ago that I was using loads of commas, and think I'll improve my overall skill with language if I can manage to stop relying on them so much. So, in sum: Not a fan of the serial comma unless it's there for good reason. (I don't actually know Interweave's stance on the serial comma. It's not something I'd push my chair back for.)

By: Kim Werker

Kim Werker — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:31:00 +0000