Writer, Editor, Helper

Taming MS Word’s Infuriating Features

The folks who put together Microsoft Word have my thanks for an excellent product, but I hear from writers and copyeditors who struggle with making it work for them. Many don’t know there’s a quick and easy way to turn off the most maddening features.

Taking twenty minutes to systematically click through the Tools menu can change your life.* Put in your preferences, click Default, click Yes, and you’re done. The settings will stay that way in every future document unless you decide to change them back later. (If you click No, they will stay that way only in the current document.)

For instance, take a look at Tools → Language → Hyphenation. If your computer has been sticking unwanted optional hyphens into your text, here’s the place to turn off that feature.

The formidable Tools → AutoCorrect Options are well worth a visit. Smacking these lists into shape will save you hours of hair-pulling. The two easiest (and most useful) tabs are the ones labeled AutoFormat as You Type and AutoCorrect. That’s where you can tell Word to stop (or start) all kinds of impish messing with your text, such as forcing you to use bullets or superscripts or curly quotation marks where you don’t want them.

The Tools → Options menu lays out some of the most important choices, starting with the Spelling & Grammar tab. If you don’t want little wavy red lines under suspicious words in your document, uncheck the box next to “Check spelling as you type.” Ditto for grammar. In the Edit tab I always turn off “When selecting, automatically select entire word,” which otherwise drives me mad.

It’s possible you’ll be bewildered by quite a few of the options. (“Balance SBCS characters and DBCS characters”?) Either ignore them or type them into Google and find out what they are. (“Not used in U.S. English Word.”)

Who knows—you might discover something you can’t live without.
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*Instructions are for Word 2003. In Word 2007, to turn hyphenation on or off, go to the Ribbon at the top of any document, choose the Page Layout tab, and in the Page Setup group click on Hyphenation. To adjust other settings, click on the colorful Office button in the upper left corner of a document, and then click on Word Options at the bottom. In the Proofing menu, you’ll find Spelling & Grammar and AutoCorrect Options.

We Can’t Believe We Said That! CMOS 16 Outtakes

After the launch of the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, there was all manner of media attention for the revision team here at the press, and through it all, if I say so myself, I think we managed to present ourselves as a fairly respectable and competent bunch.

But now that the excitement is winding down, we’ve been alerted to another, somewhat different view of the team, secretly culled from e-mails and meetings by David Morrow, senior editor in our reference division and team leader for the CMOS revision. David,  who generally affects a quiet and nonjudgmental demeanor, turns out to have a rather wicked sense of humor and a startling lack of mercy when it comes to skewering the team members for our behavior in some, let’s say, less than shining moments during the revision.

But never let it be said that we can’t take some ribbing. For your amusement, we’ll be posting and tweeting David Morrow’s CMOS 16 Outtakes. A preview:

“We’ve got one of four questions resolved; we’ll call that half done.”

“I just finished chapter 10. For the next few days, I may be able to speak only in abbreviations, some of them Latin.”

“That doesn’t make sense—a table’s not an illustration.” “These aren’t tables; they’re illustrations of tables.”

Okay, maybe they aren’t funny like bloopers from 30 Rock or The Office. We know we have our own special sense of humor, and if you’re reading this, we’re guessing you do too. Watch for more CMOS 16 outtakes on Facebook and Twitter, or check this page for the accumulating list.

(Fortunately, none of us remembers who said what.)

Copyediting Quiz, Part 2:First Do No Harm

Yesterday I posted these sentences for your scrutiny, challenging you to find errors in style and usage. Today I’ll tell you why some popular answers are wrong.*

1. If you want to lager beer, you’ll need a reliable refrigerator.

Lager is a verb in brewing jargon, so “to lager” is correct.

2. The dress was splattered, torn, ruined.

Inserting anything before ruined would amount to what a former supervisor of mine liked to call gratuitous meddling.

3. Sometimes I wish I had a dog, or a cat, or a gerbil.

Deleting the commas or articles would change the meaning. As it is, the writer is giving examples, tacking on each one as an added thought. If you make her wish for “a dog or a cat or a gerbil,” you imply that she’s not open to, say, a ferret. Which she probably isn’t, but that’s beside the point.

4. He was eager to explain where and when and by whom.

Forcing the writer to use commas instead of ands in this series would ruin its pleasant little bounce for no reason.

5. And if I had seen it . . . But there’s no point in wondering.

Three dots are correct for a sentence that trails off, and the capital B correctly begins a new sentence.

6. We are ready, should something worse oppose us.

The subjunctive is used correctly here.

7. The purists claimed that a strict parallel obtained between examples.

All is in order. Without knowing the tone of the larger text, you oughtn’t judge its vocabulary; if you don’t know this meaning of obtain, now is a good time to look it up.

8. When the mayor learned that the pilot, Charles Lindbergh, was in town, he threw a party.

The commas are correct because the preceding sentence (which I didn’t give you) was “In 1926, a famous pilot visited a small town in Illinois.” No fair? If you don’t know the context of a sentence, don’t edit—query.

9. Her omelettes inspired several new lines of thought about the use of eggs, lines of thought that are now central to culinary theory.

The comma is fine (a semicolon would not be), signaling apposition.

So where are the errors? There aren’t any. Yet I would wager that encountering these sentences in the wild, many a copyeditor would whale into them with chapter and verse of her designated style book. The same editor might also spot and fix legitimate errors in the manuscript (if she noticed them in her frenzy), but perhaps not enough to sustain the writer’s faith. And thus begins another author-editor battle.

Restraint is a virtue in copyediting. And the less experienced you are, the better it is to hold back.

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*My confidence in predicting answers comes from reviewing editing tests and freelance work. My confidence in my own opinions comes from running them by Ruth Goring and Elizabeth Fama.

Copyediting Quiz, Part 1

I’ve been reviewing copyediting tests lately, and I’m feeling mentorly. So just for fun, I have a little quiz for you. The sentences below are snippets from texts. How many errors in style or usage can you find in them? Some of this is easy; some maybe not. Take your time; the test is open-book. For my answers, tune in tomorrow.

1. If you want to lager beer, you’ll need a reliable refrigerator.

2. The dress was splattered, torn, ruined.

3. Sometimes I wish I had a dog, or a cat, or a gerbil.

4. He was eager to explain where and when and by whom.

5. And if I had seen it . . . But there’s no point in wondering.

6. We are ready, should something worse oppose us.

7. The purists claimed that a strict parallel obtained between examples.

8. When the mayor learned that the pilot, Charles Lindbergh, was in town, he threw a party.

9. Her omelettes inspired several new lines of thought about the use of eggs, lines of thought that are now central to culinary theory.

Loose the Chains! The Rules Don't Always Bind

At the online Q&A, the Chicago Manual of Style often hears from writers and editors who are frustrated that they can’t find a rule about something. “I’ve searched everywhere!” they say, like kids looking for their shoes.

Never mind that half the time the answer can be found in a dictionary or online search, or in the CMOS index, table of contents, or Search results. It’s the other half the time I’m talking about here. What do you do when you can’t find a rule?

In my experience, the number 1 reason it’s difficult to find a given rule is that there is no rule. I realize that this concept perverts centuries of American educational practice, but I’m telling you that it’s true: beyond a certain reasonable point, English expression is not legislated. We are free!

“After Mary Smith is first mentioned in a text, should she then be referred to as Mrs. Smith, Ms. Smith, or Smith? I can’t find the rule anywhere.” “Is it Lost Boys of Sudan, lost boys of Sudan, or ‘lost boys’ of Sudan? I’ve searched CMOS but can’t find it.” “CMOS lists ‘Department of History’ and ‘the department,’ but what about ‘the history department’?”

Standard grammar and style rules are not that hard to find. If you are at risk of spending more than a minute or two chasing down a rule, consider this ploy: Use your head and make a decision. Record it in your style sheet. Move on.

When Copyediting Isn’t Fun: Three Tactics

Sometimes the glamour-meter in the life of a copyeditor takes a plunge. And given that the meter starts somewhere near zero, you know I’m talking serious drudgery here: The index whose subheadings aren’t alphabetized. The table that has to be keyboarded from scratch. The bibliography of citations pasted from other sources without regard to style.

In The Subversive Copy Editor I propose a three-point plan to ward off despair.

1. Automate. This is my first choice for dispatching mindless tasks. I would rather spend two hours learning the right computer trick than an hour doing the work the slow way. At least that way I’ll know how to do it next time.

2. Delegate. Sorry, assistants and grad students and temps. Do a good job and someday you’ll get to delegate.

3. Reevaluate. If there’s no way to speed the task or shove it onto someone else, I take another look: does it really, really need to be done? The last time I faced an index with unalphabetized subheadings (121 manuscript pages’ worth), I noticed just before I snapped the cyanide capsule that the subheadings were in a type of order that reflected the development of each subject’s treatment in the book. Good enough!

Finally, if none of these works, I have a bonus tactic.

4. Accept your fate. Yep, just do it. If possible, break it into smaller chunks. Listen to music. Give yourself little treats as you make progress and a big treat at the end. It’s going to feel so good when you’re done.

Yes We Can: The Case for the Editorial “We”

In his On Language column for the New York Times, Ben Zimmer discusses the use of the first-person plural in writing, specifically the perceived motives of writers who use it. Zimmer acknowledges the use of the editorial “we” to create rapport with a community of readers, but reminds us that if the ploy fails, we may come off as pretentious (“We are not amused”), precious (“Are we happy now?”), or worse (see below).

Zimmer quotes sundry irascibles on the subject, including an admiral, a senator, and a preacher, with opinion editors a favorite target for hiding behind the authority of a larger, undefined “we” in their columns.

Admirals and senators are right to object, having especial responsibility not to throw around weight that isn’t theirs; their “we” implies the support of whole governments. A preacher’s “We” that hints at holy teamwork is possibly even more dangerous. Anyone with a platform of authority—editor, scholar, teacher—owes the audience a transparency that the use of “we” (like the use of the passive voice) can obscure.

I noted, however, that in his amusing account of objections to the editorial “we,” Zimmer does not call for a prohibition. “We” is a fine word with an honorable place in writing. It comes back to the idea of community that Zimmer mentions briefly, to the expression of ideas that a writer cannot rightly claim with an “I.” When a writer seeks to build consensus, or speak on behalf of a family or organization, or opine—as I do—from within a group of like-minded people without setting herself above it, the first-person plural is honest and apt.