AP style is all lowercase and "saving" (singular). Don't forget to move your clocks an hour forward before you go to bed tonight.
In the U.S., daylight saving time officially starts at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March.
It didn't seem that way. They had finished their coffees and snacks. I didn't get the impression they were hoping to stay longer and chat with strangers.
I do feel the guy's frustration a bit, and I rant about screen dependency too. But I also like that coffee shops have become coworking spaces.
Working from a coffee shop. There were a couple of older fellas at the table next to me. One of them looked around, shook his head, and said, “Everyone’s on their computers.” Then they got up and left.
I don’t know what to tell ya, pal. This is how a lot of people work. Many of us quite enjoy it.
Hey, business jargon users: Where did the term “future state” come from? What’s wrong with plain old “future”? It’s a perfectly fine noun on its own. Must we always add more syllables?
Nothing sucks the life out of your body and soul like teaching improv to middle schoolers who don’t want to be there.
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.
What’s stopping her from going to Minneapolis and getting those stories and images herself? Isn’t she part of the “the media”?
I told him that, if these truly were professional publications, I guarantee editors have gone behind him and cleaned up his inconsistent dash use, perhaps unbeknownst to him. He insisted I was wrong.
Some guy came at me on LinkedIn recently, telling me he’s been a published author for 30+ years and has never bothered distinguishing between dashes in his writing. Em dash, en dash, unspaced, spaced. He does whatever strikes his fancy in the moment and readers don’t notice, he claimed.
Next thing you know, they’ll come after She-Ra.
Dictionary, I sometimes witness people using “gaslighting” to describe plain old lying. Have you noticed this too? Would this be an example of semantic bleaching?
Did she know what Greenland is? Please tell me she at least knew what Greenland is.
A package of lettuce labeled “farmed locally in Virginia.”
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.
Utilize, hey?
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.
A snippet from a news article: Actor Rob Schneider recently shared that he found himself in a confrontation due to his support for President Donald Trump with fellow actor Robert de Niro and instead of getting into a political debate, he tried to diffuse the tension.
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.”
I don’t know if it’s geographic. I’m in Wisconsin, and I hear it both ways. People on TV and podcasts, in my experience, lean heavily toward “ah.”
For me, the first “o” sounds like “aw.” I keep hearing others say “ah.”
This must be related to the cot/caught merger. From my mouth, “cot” and “caught” have distinct pronunciations.
The more I pay attention to the way people pronounce “chocolate,” the more I think my pronunciation is the less common one.
Write like you speak.
No. Writing affords you more time to consider your words and choose them carefully. Use that time to elevate your work.
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
Copy editor: You’re really a cop, right? (Everyone thinks I’m a cop. I would LOVE it if they’d ask me questions about language.)
Improv comic: Can you tell me a joke? (Probably not, but if you give me a one-word suggestion, we could act out a scene together.)
