🤔 Have you ever found yourself following a language 'rule' you don't agree with – just in case someone out there thinks you don't know the rule? 😆 CMOS Shop Talk discusses when breaking a rule is the better choice. Link here 👉 👉 👉 j.mp/3lGdhxx

First drafts are always rough. First tries are always awkward. First steps are always unbalanced. First anything can be scary if you’re focused on how you look or feel. Focus on the experience. Focus on giving it your best effort. Focus on learning. Then go for it.

A list of professions and the official terms for when they’re stripped of their status: 7. Priests (defrocked) 6. Underwear models (debriefed) 5. Florists (deflowered) 4. Song writers (decomposed) 3. Examiners (detested) 2. Actors (departed) 1. Porn stars (delayed)

Latest The OED update includes "anti-vax," which goes back to "the father of vaccination himself, Edward Jenner, who in 1812 wrote to a friend to complain that 'the Anti-Vacks are assailing me with all the force they can muster in the newspapers.'" (@dentjw) public.oed.com/blog/the-oed-s…

1. Syllabification and line breaks don't always coincide. 2. You can follow etymology or phonetics. This distinction is clear in another word: American Heritage: dic · ​tion · ar ·​ y Merriam-Webster: dic · ​tio · ​nary

🖍️ Get out your red pen and practice your ^carets—it's #NationalPunctuationDay! 📰 This strip was originally published on September 8, 1982.⁠

In honor of National Punctuation Day, I—a professional editor—confess that, unless I'm getting paid, I don't care (at all) if you use the serial comma, lots! of! exclamation points!, double spaces after periods, or incorrect em dashes. Life is short; punctuate joyfully.

A Nobel Prize for the Credibility Revolution--David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens. My writeup at Marginal Revolution marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…

A discussion of the replication crisis tying it to broken peer-review system and excessive journal prestige. Do you agree? lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/…

When friends or loved ones offer grammar advice, what’s a novelist to do? Carol Saller Carol Saller has suggestions—and warnings. This week in Fiction+ at CMOS Shop Talk. #ChicagoStyle #AmEditing #AmWriting cmosshoptalk.com/2021/10/19/whe…

Stick to the science, Robert J. Oppenheimer. We’ll take care of the grammar!

Mark Twain: At times he may indulge himself with a long one [sentence], but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions of its view as a whole; 1/2

"when he has done with it, it won’t be a sea-serpent with half of its arches under the water; it will be a torch-light procession" 2/2

Writing with style helps you as a researcher... (1/2) (from The Scientist's Guide to Writing amazon.com/Scientists-Gui…)

...despite the popular view that writing ponderously conveys authority (2/2)

Lila the editor. From Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

How and why academic writing has gotten worse and what to do about it worksinprogress.co/issue/the-elem…