Thu 22 Mar 2007
The New York Times Director of Copy Desks answers questions about copy editing.
I especially like 1990’s ; ’90s ; 1990s divide. In the font my browser uses this is confusing, because the zero looks very much like a lower case oh. I must say that I tend to use DVD’s not DVDs. I think that this is usually because for the acronyms I deal with on a daily basis, appending an ess would be significant. For example, ACE’s and ACEs’s need to be differentiated. Perhaps I should choose more carefully.
One Response to “Be silent Grammar Mavens and attend.”
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March 25th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
As someone who spent three years as a magazine editor (ATLA uses the Chicago Manual of Style, but like the Times, also has an in-house style manual), I can vouch that there are people for whom these questions really, really matter. In a world where hardworking parts of speech are routinely abused and neglected, these people are linguistical heroes, with a high Rodney Dangerfield factor.