The Nitpicker’s Nook is a monthly collection of language-related articles, interviews, and blog posts. If you read something that would make a good addition, email your suggestion to [email protected].
By Savanna Scott Leslie
- That’s a wrap on the 2016 Editors Canada conference in Vancouver! Paul Cipywnyk shared his photos from the event so you can relive those memories, or see what you missed. (Flickr)
- Across the pond, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) held a professional development day for fiction editors. Editor Liz Jones discusses some takeaways from the big day. (Eat Sleep Edit Repeat)
- Brexit: the fun new portmanteau that everyone’s worrying about. And if, like me, you edit in the finance world, you’ve probably seen the term a lot. Linguist Mark Liberman muses on different pronunciations of the trendy word in John Oliver’s must-see Brexit segment from Last Week Tonight, which you can watch within the article. I’m in the [‘brɛk.sɪt] camp. What about you? (Language Log)
- Perhaps all the complaints about “females” in pop culture have put you off the word entirely and you’ve begun to use “women” as an adjective instead. You wouldn’t be alone. Mignon Fogarty weighs in on the practice, and the sexism that may have caused it, before sharing a practical suggestion. (Grammar Girl)
- How much do you consider syntax in your edits? Emma Darwin explores the “rhythm, reason, and rhyme” behind strong sentences. (The Itch of Writing: The Blog)
- As I’ve been learning from Alec Ross’s The Industries of the Future (2016), automation and mechanization will quickly reshape the economic landscape. These changes should improve our health and increase leisure time—but they’ll also allow companies to drastically cut jobs. Stay calm! A recent report suggests writing and editing jobs in Canada are unlikely to be automated in the next 10 to 20 years. (The Globe and Mail)
Savanna Scott Leslie is an editor and publishing consultant based in Hamilton, Ontario. She’s also a new and enthusiastic co-coordinator of Editors Hamilton-Halton, though she can’t help but shudder at the word co-coordinator.
This article was copy edited by Joe Cotterchio-Milligan.
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