words / myth / ampers & virgule

 My website was getting gray around the temples, but now I have a spiffy new one , and you can find any newer blog posts there , if I get around to writing any.

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2021/12/blog-moved.html

 This is a brief technical essay for editors. Writers are free to listen in. Why do we argue, er, debate, er, discuss commas so often? Why do we mostly all agree about one comma and have widel...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2021/05/commachameleon.html

I think it's time for a general reconsideration of the convention around commas and speech tags. I'm sensing some grumbling among the ground troops (fellow editors), and I think it may be time fo...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2021/01/the-lowly-speech-tag.html

 For most of my life, the public was willing to trust experts—in whatever field—to render judgment on what was better or worse (an argument, a product quality, an artistic work). The zeitgei...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2021/01/judging-book-by-its-no-not-just-its.html

I lost track. I produce an annual directory. As directories go, it's not large—under 300 pages in 6″ × 9″ format. But I was looking forward to splashing a diagonal sash across the cover br...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2021/01/standing-type.html

I've been thinking (always dangerous, I know). A common metaphor for hatred, bigotry, and discrimination of all kind is that a wind-borne seed falls on fertile ground and sprouts and blossoms. An...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2020/10/mycelia-of-hatred.html

In a discussion on Facebook, a new editor said that in a copyediting course she had taken, the instructor was a strict prescriptivist about grammar. She wondered how strictly she should enforce ...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2018/05/what-you-should-expect-when-you-ask-for.html

Dear certain particular author (if this doesn't apply to you, then it doesn't apply to you), You have decided to publish your book yourself. Great. I'd love to help you do that. Please understa...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2018/03/switching-hats-changing-gears-taking.html

Someone asked a question today on Facebook, in an editing group, about a particular use of ellipsis points. The question had to do with whether there should be space before or after the ellipsis...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2017/08/making-point-or-three-points-or-ellipsis.html

As typesetting technology has evolved over the centuries, the practices of compositors have evolved as well, both in response to advances in technology and in response to economic forces. Any per...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2017/07/evoking-era-in-type.html

While typography evolved from classical and medieval roots, the modern body of knowledge that forms the basis for best practices in commercial (keyword that I'll get to in a minute) book typogra...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2017/04/a-framework-for-thinking-about-book.html

Yesterday, a colleague, a man who was trained in the law in his native England and has lived in Israel for many years, no dummy he, asked in an editing forum about the meaning of something he re...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2017/02/jargon-as-shibboleth.html

Earlier this morning, on a mailing list, someone trying to sort out a list of printers began to ask a question by positing "There are many, many on-demand book printers/publishers online, some wi...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2016/06/printers-publishers-and.html

Well, it has been a very long time since I posted anything, and for that I sort of apologize. I guess my allotted social networking time has been absorbed by Facebook. However, in a conversation ...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2014/05/instructions-to-authors-who-think-excel.html

I am exhausted from an all-weekend training seminar and therefore not in a civil mood toward anyone and shouldn't be posting at all so maybe you should just delete this before reading it as a kin...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2013/02/where-in-world-is-press-democrat.html

Tom Santos, one of the most active members in the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) has a regular slot on his community access television station. He interviewed me in Septemb...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/11/new-interview-on-self-publishing.html

Dear Dick, Although I am usually a careful researcher before I make a major move, I called you to help me compose my book on no more than instinct. What a great decision it turned out to be....

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/08/kind-words-from-client.html

One of the strategies spammers use to get past Bayesian spam filters is to include, in their hidden text, lists of infrequently used words. The unedited list below from such an email contains gem...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/05/bulgarian-ignoble-cleveland-fusty.html

I am sitting in a hotel room in Trieste, which is at the moment in Italy, although it is walking distance to Slovenia and has flown many flags over the millenia, including its own as an independe...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/05/why-its-important-to-work-with-native.html

Knopf book designer Chip Kidd’s TED talk

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/04/book-design-is-no-laughing-matter-okay.html

March 19: PG Azalea March 20: Andromeda March 21: Forsythia; flowering quince budded with a couple flowers open Oh my, this is early.

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/03/sproin-n-n-n-n-g.html

I shouldn’t have to tell you this. Your parents should have taught you that honesty is the best policy. But maybe you forgot, or maybe you just suppressed it because it was hard to implement. ...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/02/to-be-honest.html

This post is about commas, periods, and quotation marks. If you are already stifling a yawn, just move along. In the United States, commas and periods go inside quotation marks, regardless of l...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/02/logical-punctuation.html

What part of “customer service” do they not understand? Enough said.

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/02/comcast.html

Yale Rep is a little like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. “You never know what you’re gonna get.” Well, that’s not entirely true. It is a repertory company, after all, and you can pre...

https://www.ampersandvirgule.com/2012/02/good-goods-at-yale-rep-is-real-goods.html