Editor Mark's Blog

Newspapers have been quick to tell us about the latest trends and help us prepare for a changing world. But they’ve been amazingly slow to recognize the changes that are necessary to remain relevant. And now, as newspapers finally enter the 21st century, “online-first” operations risk losing what made them great in the first place: [...]

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I’d like to say goodbye to “good-bye.” The unhyphenated “goodbye” gets nearly five times as many Google hits. ”Goodbye” is the preferred spelling in the Associated Press Stylebook. The American Heritage and Webster’s New World dictionaries list goodbye as the first spelling. Bryan Garner in “Garner’s Modern American Usage,” compares the hyphenated form to the archaic “to-day.” [...]

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Everyone said it’s easy. I was up late trying to figure out how to include all my website information in one place, and I failed. Or at least fell asleep. All I succeeded in doing was transferring the URL to my blog, so my site exists only on a hidden server somewhere and on my [...]

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Grammar was not my subject. In high school English class, we did a unit on grammar every semester. It always seemed to be the same thing to me. The work was either obvious (I could recite “Grammar Rock” with the best of them) or unnecessarily confusing (English is like that). The book we used seemed [...]

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I strolled away from Google Plus to visit Twitter a few moments ago, and I pointed out that “for free” is criticized because “free” often works better in half the space. Usage guru Bill Walsh of the Washington Post pointed out that the real criticism is that “free” is not a noun, a more challenging [...]

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You are free to parade, grill, engage in pyrotechnics, and otherwise celebrate Independence Day, but don’t feel it necessary to call it that. The celebration of the nation’s birthday has the distinction of being the only official holiday named for a date rather than a person or event. There is a temptation to write it [...]

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The best written works contain clarity, consistency and elegance. These are the goals of style books. My first AP Stylebook was a 1976 edition acquired in 1979 when I started high school. I read every entry. I didn’t memorize it, but I at least knew where to look up whatever question I had. Over time, [...]

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This list of links was presented as a handout at the “Freelancers Forum” session at the American Copy Editors Society conference in Phoenix in March 2011. It was compiled by Mark Allen, Kate Karp and Liz Smith. It’s not intended to be exhaustive, but it represents some of our favorite places to find help when [...]

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The “ou” spelling (loud, gout, rough) is more common than “uo,” especially when the combination forms just one syllable. Where this combination does appear, we sometimes struggle with the spelling. If you tend to consult your toothpaste tube every time you have to spell “fluoride,” it might help to know that most words that start [...]

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The word “fulsome” presents a problem that usage and etymology fail to sort out. It either means “abundant,” “offensive” or, perhaps as a compromise, “offensively abundant.” Dictionaries usually give at least the first two meanings while most usage guides insist on the third. The Associated Press Stylebook says “it means disgustingly excessive” and should not [...]

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