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T Is for That

That is a handy and versatile word. It can be an adjective: That puppy followed me home. Or an adverb: Are you that sure of yourself? Or a pronoun, standing in for a person, place, thing, event, or...

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U Is for Usage

People are regularly accused of not knowing their grammar when the real issue is a possibly shaky grasp of usage. Here’s Bryan Garner, whom I’ve invoked more often in the last week or so than in the...

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Notes, Endless Notes

Beyond (possibly) acknowledgments and an author’s bio, fiction writers and editors generally don’t have to think much about backmatter. That’s a publishing term for the part of a book that comes after...

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Sturgis’s Law #10

Some while back I started an occasional series devoted to Sturgis’s Laws. “Sturgis” is me. The “Laws” aren’t Rules That Must Be Obeyed. Gods forbid, we writers and editors have enough of those circling...

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Dash Away, All

Dashes and hyphens are so often considered together that when I got to the end of “Sturgis’s Law #10,” I knew something was missing. After all, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) devotes several pages...

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Editing on Paper

When I started editing for a living, “editing on paper” was about as noteworthy as swimming in water — like what else was I going to edit on — parchment? calfskin? Now most editing is done on a...

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Q Is for Quotes

“Quotes” is short for either “quotations” or “quotation marks.” They are related, so we’ll deal with both of them here. While we’re at it, we might say a few things about dialogue, even though it...

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S Is for Style

Over the years of working with English as an editor and writer I’ve learned to be careful of the words “right” and “wrong.” When asked if something is right or not, I often begin with “It depends” —...

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Sturgis’s Law #11

A very long while back, like in May 2015, I started an occasional series devoted to Sturgis’s Laws. “Sturgis” is me. The “Laws” aren’t Rules That Must Be Obeyed. Gods forbid, we writers and editors...

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Editing Workshop, 10: Colonoscopy

My semicolon T-shirt has a semicolon on the front and this message on the back. No, this is not about the medical procedure. Let’s take a look at colons of a punctuational kind. The colon is a strong...

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