Ken Jennings sometimes refers to the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament as “JIT” and Double Jeopardy as “DT.” He can coin all the #Jeopardy slang he wants, but I can’t help but recall that when Mayim Bialik called the Jeopardy round “Single Jeopardy” some people lost their minds.

White House Confirms President Who Flipped Off Ford Worker for Correctly Calling Him a Pedophile Protector Kept His Job Without Discipline

Spotted the following in an article about generative AI: “Tempted to ask ChatGPT to write a love letter to your romantic interest? New research suggests that won’t go over well.” I could have saved the researchers a lot of time.

Alex Pretti was legally carrying. ICE agents surrounded him, took his gun, beat him, and shot him dead. To all the 2nd Amendment diehards claiming the government is coming for our guns: Where is your outrage? The government literally came for a citizen’s gun in broad daylight.

I guess everything’s farmed locally for the people who are in that place. (I am not in that place.)

Yep. What if all the things we’ve been labeling “distractions” were never distractions? What if they’re the things we’re supposed to paying attention to?

The SPEAKER implies. The LISTENER infers. The DUDE abides.

Seen in a news story today: “The Milwaukee Brewers are expected to add another catcher to their organization prior to the end of the 2025-26 offseason.” “Prior to the end of the 2025-26 offseason” is an awfully roundabout way to say “before the 2026 season.”

A fellow editor just messaged me and pointed out our shared infinity for words. They meant affinity. I don’t know if I should politely correct them, post about it here, or both.

#Jeopardy musings: When a contestant uses a questionable pronunciation, Ken will passively-aggressively repeat the response with the “correct” pronunciation. When they hunt for the Daily Double and find it before they have a handle on the category, they might be shooting themselves in the foot.

LinkedIn pushed a post into my feed from some guy I don’t know. It was a photo of “The Elements of Style” by Strunk & White, and the text included praise for Elon Musk. I had been having a perfectly fine day until then.

There are two errors in this sentence from a Newsweek article: 1. “Diffuse” should be “defuse.” 2. “Actor Rob Schneider” should be “Buffoon Rob Schneider.”

The more I pay attention to the way people pronounce “chocolate,” the more I think my pronunciation is the less common one.

We share insights based on our insights and experiences —> We share insights based on our experiences #AmEditing

When given the choice between a two-syllable word and a four-syllable word, many writers will say, “Oooo … I’ll use the four-syllable word. Then I’ll sound smarter.” The trouble is, your readers prefer the two-syllable word. They don’t have time for your BS.

“Language change has always been beyond our control and shaped by invisible factors. Your preferences don’t really matter, because linguistic evolution reflects cultural moments more than the feelings of individual people.” — from “Algospeak” by Adam Aleksic

This guy wrote “Star Trick Next Generation” instead of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” AND THE JUDGES ACCEPTED IT! What’s this world coming to? #Jeopardy

My money’s on a ghostwritten book and an early elimination from Dancing With the Stars Season 36.

My fellow copy editors: If you’re on social media talking about how much you hate when people say this or that, or you’re ranting about petty trash like “less” vs. “fewer,” you’re not helping yourself get hired, nor are you helping boost the profession. No one wants to work with a judgmental a-hole.

I’m not a millennial myself, but I must say I do enjoy the millennial pause.

M-W spent that extra hour getting feisty.

My 16-year-old was telling me about one of his favorite YouTubers. Instead of releasing short videos every few days, this guy releases one two-hour video every couple of years. I said, “Son, back in my day, we called such videos ‘movies.’” Everything old is new again.

Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman, apparently in a move to rebrand itself as a multipurpose AI-powered all-in-one solution, not just a mostly useless editing tool.

I wish not to offend anyone, but I dislike the word “hubby.” I take no issue with those who use it. I just don’t like it.

About once a month for the last 20 years, someone has asked me, “Hey, are you a cop?” It must be the bald head and the stern look. Sometimes I reply, “No, I’m a cop ... eee editor!” No one ever gets it. Ever.

Parents, please check your kids’ candy this Halloween. I’ve just found an ancient metal whistle with the inscription “QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT" inside a Snickers bar. I blew it and heard a note of infinite distance, and now I’m haunted by a figure in pale, fluttering draperies. Be safe.

So there are currently … seven and a half?

Ignore the adorable cat for a moment, and answer me this: Have you heard people use this phrasal template in face-to-face conversation—as opposed to only seeing it in memes? Because I know I have. I’m reading “Algospeak” by @etymologynerd.bsky.social, and I’m high alert for this kind of stuff.

Me, a copy editor, scouring the web to figure out what all these abbreviations mean when the author could have taken the few extra seconds necessary to fully spell the words.

Took my 3-year-old niece out to lunch. She said she wanted a cheeseburger. When her cheeseburger arrived, she was like, “WTF? I didn’t want meat.” Turns out she wanted a grilled cheese, which her parents have been letting her call a cheeseburger her whole life. SMH, what’s this world coming to?

I’m not saying em dashes are good or bad or a sign of AI or whatever. I’m just saying you don’t need an em dash in every sentence. You certainly don’t need three in one sentence. I mean, really.

I keep getting notifications from the Starbucks app announcing new secret menu drinks, and I don’t think they understand how secrets work.

Hey, if you’re embedding a link on a webpage or in an email or in a document (so, anywhere), make the link longer than one word. “Click here for more information” should be hyperlinked — not just the word “here.” This works better for people with small screens, low vision, or imprecise hands.

Yesterday’s NYT Spelling Bee didn’t accept “gyat.” SMDH.

I’ve encountered many semicolons today, and not a single one was used correctly.

I was listening to a podcast, and the host was talking about boiled eggs. Because of his accent (Southern US), his pronunciation of “boiled” sounds like “bold,” and I love it. I shall now always refer to boiled eggs as bold eggs.

provide oversight and monitoring of --> oversee and monitor #AmEditing #BuriedVerbs #ZombieNouns

Just came across “leverage” and “utilizing” IN THE SAME SENTENCE. #AmEditing

The 2018 firing of ABC employee Roseanne Barr was a personnel decision made by ABC. The 2025 suspension of ABC employee Jimmy Kimmel was a personnel decision made by the federal government. If you don’t understand the difference, go back and read that slowly or ask a friend to read it to you.

I hope Nate Bargatze’s Boys and Girls Club stunt at the Emmys is the beginning of the end of this nation’s love of Nate Bargatze. Shortening speeches, making room for more bits, and putting a charity in the middle is a trifecta of bad decisions.

we offer virtual training, accessible online --> we offer virtual training #AmEditing

to facilitate the identification of --> to identify #AmEditing

The Cambridge Dictionary has added an entry for “skibidi.” To paraphrase a post I saw a decade ago regarding “twerk”: If you think your opposition to a dictionary recognizing “skibidi” makes you a defender of the English language, you don’t understand how the English language or dictionaries work.

While editing, I accidentally changed “Sodium reduction” to “Sodium Seduction.” I immediately corrected it, but now I can’t stop imagining what sodium seduction would look like.

Removing this from its original context today so as to avoid turning it into a dunk, but for the thousandth time: The word "till" in the sense of "until" predates the word "until" by a century and has been in regular use for a millennium, give or take. It's not an abbreviation; it's a word.

Listen, if I’m editing something for you and you’ve told me to use Merriam-Webster as my guide, I’m going to change “roadmap“ to “road map.” I won’t like it, but I’ll do it. #AmEditing

At first glance, I thought this was a story about older people calling younger people “sweetheart.” In fact, it’s the other way around. Here’s my policy: I don’t call anyone “sweetheart” except for my kids and my spouse and ... yeah, that’s it. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

When did the construction “in the __________ space” become so popular? I’m seeing it everywhere. leaders in the finance space --> finance leaders retailers in the clothing space --> clothing retailers researchers in the fibromyalgia space --> fibromyalgia researchers #AmEditing

Do you think editors are secretly judging your every typo? Think again! On Friday, I will post the latest episode of The Editor’s Half Hour, featuring grammar guru Dave Nelsen @thegrammargeek.bsky.social! We chat about why *not* being your grandma’s grammar police is the new editorial vibe.

Email: The lab results from your recent physical are ready. To view them, don’t log in to the account you used to schedule the appointment. Create a new account on a separate site. In fact, create a new account to view each of the seven lab results. To learn what the numbers mean, IDK, try Google.