The headline VS the actual story

Merriam Christmas

Merry Christmas from Zelda, who is very pleased with her present of an empty box.

Why did no one ever tell me that eggnog in French is chicken milk?

What's wrong, Babe? You've barely touched your eggnog puke cake.

My response to anything over the next two weeks

Hot writing/editing take of the day: When you're doing a find and replace in Word, the Find and Replace dialogue box should *stay in one place* so that you can easily click through all the results. #AmEditing

You'd better believe that if I worked for @merriam-webster.com I'd be voting for "dictionary" every year too. theonion.com/merriam-webs...

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Learned today that “Galápagos” comes from a Spanish word for tortoise, meaning that “Galápagos Tortoise” is, in fact, a tortology

I've got the CSI: Miami meme in Scrabble.

New-to-me entry in the annals of verbification: "rake-stepped" gizmodo.com/fallout-ai-r...

The most compelling argument for this is that Sam was once a baby raised without ChatGPT, and look how he turned out.

Nothing worse than signing an email "warm regards" and getting a reply with "warmest regards". Oh, now it's ON.

Can you resign from a job you don't lawfully hold? apnews.com/article/alin...

*presses record* Idea for movie: a maverick proofreader breaks all the rules & defies his bosses by making er, clear & concise corrections, wait a minute, delete

Bread guard of the Rings

I don't think hold any belief more strongly than the belief that "Paste & Match Formatting" should be DEFAULT.

Once again debating whether and how to correct someone who consistently spells my name Jonathan. www.arrantpedantry.com/2019/04/24/t...

Tired: AI will write your boring emails for you Wired: A hand-cranked machine will write your boring emails for you www.instagram.com/reel/DRmPFQs...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the sun is always rising.

DECEMBER CARTOON: ivacheung.com/2025/12/crow... #AmEditing

I think this is a record. We have twenty-two pies for eighteen people.

It's an archipelago off the north-east tip of Scotland, but that's not important right now.

Today in linguists are NOT KIDDING when we say that your knowledge of language enables you to understand sentences that have never been said before.

Our long national nightmare is over.

My microwave sings a little song when my Hot Pocket is done. Should it have the right to vote?

Please alert the Typography Crimes Division in The Hague.

It's Monday. So I thought I'd checka my email. flashy: homestarrunner.com/sbemails/210... tubey: youtu.be/-zhsNdk1_Vc?si

"Groceries" is indeed a very accurate word to describe things that one buys at a grocery store. Some might even say it's the most accurate word for such items.

FACT FOCUS: Extrajudicial murder of civilians is bad apnews.com/article/trum...

This is the timeline cleanse I needed.

PUB DAY for DICTIONARY

Definitely the one where I questioned the importance of the "recreate"/"re-create" distinction.

Easy choice if you're a deer deciding where to buy a house

The emergency brake on this train says "FINE FOR MISUSE" so I guess it's okay if you want to mess with it

I still think they should have called these Ouroboreos.

Question for freelance copyeditors who work with production editors: If you turn over files to the author to review your changes and they don't respond, what do you do? 1. Nudge the author. 2. Ask the production editor to nudge the author. 3. Nothing—that's the production editor's job.

OK, I am now understanding why the rich ruling class wants generative AI to write their emails for them.

we need a department of kerning

Do you want the protomolecule? Because that's how you get the protomolecule. www.popularmechanics.com/science/a307...

girl we have some bad news on your girlsecondarycancerlabreport. i'm afraid i have some bad news for some very specific cancer girlies qwantz.com/index.php?co...

The adverb "eke" may have fallen out of use, but the related verb "eke" is still alive today (almost always in combination with "out"). It originally meant 'increase, add, enlarge' but eventually came to mean 'to supplement' and then 'to make something last longer'.

Let's all make "perbe" happen! #linguistics #perbe

Gotta say, I’m not so confident that you do

Print Shop Deluxe–ass sign

FinalDraft.pdf FinalDraft_1.pdf FinalDraft_1_Send_This_One.pdf FinalDraft_1_No_Actually_Send_This_One.pdf FinalFinalDraft_1_This_Draft_Is_Correct.pdf

Word just crashed and didn't restore any of the formatting changes I'd made to a 26-page document when I reopened it. #AmEditing