Writer Ian Bogost has a clever proposal for a drinking establishment that every copy editor will love: “A bar called The Copy Desk where they offer an alternative to your drink order and you get kind of really upset for a second but then...
A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. The Twitter feed @PangramTweets uses a bot to scour the internet for pangrammatic tweets, providing a weirdly wonderful window on what people write. This is part of a...
An introvert in Baltimore, Maryland, is unhappy with an online definition of introvert, and is speaking up about wanting it changed. The definition describes an introvert as someone preoccupied with their own thoughts and feelings—such as a selfish...
What do readers of The New Yorker complain about most when they write letters to the editor? Those two dots above vowels in words like cooperate and reelect. The diaeresis, as those marks are known, has remained in use at the magazine ever since the...
He’s a real trouper is the traditional spelling, with trouper from a theatrical troupe and the old stage ethic of the show must go on. Jean in Sharon, Pennsylvania, asks because she teaches theater and sees the competing trooper, which evokes...
Do you cringe when you hear the words orientate and disorientate? A copy editor in Waldoboro, Maine does. She’d rather hear “orient” and “disorient.” The hosts weigh in on that extra syllable. This is part of a complete...