by Murugaraj | May 27, 2013 | Copyediting Style
One of the important characteristics of a copy editor is eye for details. I would say that perspective is yet another. As copy editors edit as if they were an author – trying to present the author’s intentions clearly – and read like a reader, it becomes...
by Murugaraj | Apr 30, 2013 | Grammar & Usage
Today’s crash blossoms is from The Hindu.TV shows jailed IPS officer visiting homeYou might be tempted to believe that an IPS officer was jailed by a TV show. Our mind parses “TV shows” together as the subject of the sentence and the verb as...
by Murugaraj | Sep 23, 2012 | Miscellaneous
I was invited for a “Bharatha nattiya arangettram” of my friend’s daughter. Five very young children – should be around 7-8 years of age – performed their maiden apprearance on the stage. Though not a connoiseur of classical dance, I could appreciate...
by Murugaraj | Jul 22, 2012 | Grammar & Usage
Commas are most probably the tiniest creature that can cause heartbreaks to any copy editor. The simple reason is that they are not solely governed by rules. Arguably, using commas have as many exceptions as there are rules. Consider such as for example. The such as...
by Murugaraj | Jun 8, 2012 | Copyediting Capers
Sorry to be blunt, but that was the first question that came to my mind after reading this article in the Economic Times yesterday. I’m complaining not about the use – rather the misuse – of commas in the text, nor about the sloppy writing. I’m...
by Murugaraj | Jun 3, 2012 | Grammar & Usage
After a hiatus, this post could be a good one to resume blogging. I was reading the Chicago Style Q&A and liked two questions in this issue. The first one: Q. Should she or it be used as a pronoun for a country? A. Never use she to refer to a country. You’ll sound...
by Murugaraj | Jul 6, 2011 | Copyediting Capers
A friend of mine recently shared some of the photos taken during his engagement. The subject line read: My Engagement Snaps. Not a good choice of words, is it?
by Murugaraj | May 12, 2011 | Punctuation
If you are a copyeditor, I’m sure you know serial commas, aka Oxford comma. That’s the comma that precedes the last element in series as in He loves reading, editing, teaching, and leading the team. Yes, that one that follows “teaching”. You as...
by Murugaraj | Jan 22, 2011 | Grammar & Usage
I just tried to clarify the usage of “however” and “though”.
by Murugaraj | Jan 21, 2011 | Copyediting Capers
OK. Don’t pounce on me as if I advised you not to use find and replace. I agree that find and replace is an excellent Word tool for editors. But you should also remember that you are dealing with a machine. If you want to replace all -ize ending words with -ise...
