Can't mess with Texas!

OK, so I've been buying supplies for my side business Murami, and I bought some cast iron coat hooks from this guy called TexasWesternGifts on Ebay. When I paid, he emailed to say he gave volume discounts, so I went to look at what else he's selling, and along with confederate flag biker pins and rabbit pelts, I found "Armadillo Lone Star Beer Bottle Taxidermy." Oh. My. God.

I've enlisted typo troops

So, all of my loyal blog fans (ok, it's just my sister-in-law) have taken to reporting typos to me. I love it! As she said, what spell checker misses "ptcher?"

from www.kywnewsradio.com:



Phillies Feeling Heat Over Brett Myers Incident
Local women's groups are vowing to turn up the pressure on the Phillies in the wake of the wife-abuse charges against ptcher Brett Myers.

CNN.com typo!

Man, do I love exposing typos! Get this:

Janet Kettman, one of Lewis" victims, has previous said she and her neighbors on Sunset Circle are always looking over their shoulders in fear the stalker will strike again.

This is an article about a rogue cat being sentenced to stay inside, which in itself is funny.

The Joys of Editing

I believe this will be somewhat of a motivational post for myself. I like my work, I like editing, and I think I have a good eye, though I, like everyone, have my "d'oh!" moments. And editing is a profession that can translate to any field. Granted, if I want to work in some particular fields, like medical or scientific editing, I would need to either garner small freelance experience bit by bit or take certification classes to get any kind of substantial work. But in general, everyone needs an editorial eye. It's been said countless times that language is living and always changing, and some (noneditors) will say that for this reason editing is not necessary. Those people believe that we should just let language go the path of least resistance, but the truth is that language needs to be reined in a bit, to weed out actual mistakes in usage. Otherwise, the whole point of having a developed language with thousands of words--to be able to clearly convey messages--is moot. If words are used to mean something other than their original meaning, and people begin to generally accept the new meaning, then its real meaning is confused and the word's usefulness has diminished. Not that this doesn't happen a lot already, and I am probably guilty of using words in a sense different from their original meaning, but I'm saying that editors are here to conserve the correct meaning of words, and therefore their usefulness. And I think that's important. So I edit.

Origins of SPAM

From the SPAM corporate website:

Use of the term "spam" was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which our SPAM meat product was featured. In this skit, a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet.

No wonder their show is called SPAMalot! Ben and I are going to see it on Sunday. I've heard it's great; I can't wait to go!

Copy Editors in Cyberspace

Someone on the Copyediting-L email list wrote an message linking to this article about blogging editors. I thought it was worth linking to it here, despite the fact that MY blog is not mentioned! ;) It mostly talks about journalists' blogs.

Redux

So I've finally pounded the meaning of redux into my brain. I think, because of its visual similarity to "reduce," I thought it meant "condensed." So if someone wrote me an email titled, "Acronyms, Redux," I thought it was a condensed version of a previous thread, and when it wasn't, I figured the person was using the word incorrectly. It also threw me off because I start thinking about reflux. Which I definitely know the meaning of. Anyway, "redux" means "revisited/brought back." So, my theme for this week is "PMS, redux."