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“Punctuation is a deeply conservative club. It hardly ever admits a new member.”
― Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
― Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
“We copy editors sometimes get a reputation for wanting to redirect the flow, change the course of the missile, have our way with a piece of prose. The image of the copy editor is of someone who favors a rigid consistency, a mean person who enjoys pointing out other people's errors, a lowly person who is just starting out on her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression, or, at worst, a bitter, thwarted person who wanted to be a writer and instead got stuck dotting the i's and crossing the t's and otherwise advancing the careers of other writers. I suppose I have been all of these.
But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work ,taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject the for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.”
―
But good writers have a reason for doing things the way they do them, and if you tinker with their work ,taking it upon yourself to neutralize a slightly eccentric usage or zap a comma or sharpen the emphasis of something that the writer was deliberately keeping obscure, you are not helping. In my experience, the really great writers enjoy the editorial process. They weigh queries, and they accept or reject the for good reasons. They are not defensive. The whole point of having things read before publication is to test their effect on a general reader. You want to make sure when you go out there that the tag on the back of your collar isn't poking up—unless, of course, you are deliberately wearing your clothes inside out.”
―
“Reading is sometimes thought of as a form of escapism, and it’s a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book. But a book can also be where one finds oneself; and when a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself.”
― My Life in Middlemarch
― My Life in Middlemarch
“Something there is in cyberspace that doesn't love an apostrophe.”
― Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
― Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen
Books on the Nightstand
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— last activity 15 hours, 44 min ago
A group to discuss books and topics mentioned on Books on the Nightstand, a blog and podcast about books and reading.
Washington Post Reads
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— last activity Apr 01, 2014 07:21PM
The first book we will be reading is "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter. "Hopscotching between 1960s Italy and contemporary Hollywood, “Beautiful Ruins” ...more
Best Wives Club
— 1 member
— last activity Jun 17, 2018 05:39PM
our kind-of bimonthly-ish opportunity to get together with ladies we love and admire to bond, read, chat, share, and learn from each other
Best Wives Club
— 5 members
— last activity Jun 17, 2018 05:51PM
our kind-of bimonthly-ish opportunity to get together with ladies we love and admire to bond, read, chat, share, and learn from each other
Shannon’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Shannon’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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