Hey, I like the way you write, too. I love that you'll come over and slap us silly because of wrongful apostrophe usage. That's not unsensible, actually.
In re: footnote 1 I observe that "aviatrix" has been deprecated in much of the aviation world. (I am a docent at a Large Things-That-Fly Museum so I dwell on this stuff a lot.) It seems, as well, that quite a few dramatic performers of the female gender these days use "actor" to denote their trade. Do you think we'll live long enough to witness the final "obs."-ing of the -trix and -ess forms or are they amusing enough to persist in common usage?
I think that the -trix variations are well and truly dead (and, yes, poetess and its sisters), and I would use one only in a winking sort of way, as I did here. By the way, and as you may well know, the word "aviatrix" figures prominently in Arthur Kopit's splendid play Wings, which is where I first encountered it. As to "actress," it'll last as long as the Oscars and Tonys continue to use it in their awards categories, but who knows when that will shift? And indeed a lot of female actors prefer to call themselves actors, and I'm the last person who'd disagree with them.
I love the Arthur Kopit reference; in my interview with Austin Pendleton, he talks a lot about Kopit's first play, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad (A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition)," which was Austin's first professional play too. Director Jerome Robbins made him audition six times, beginning a long and complicated working relationship.
I love anything you write about copy editing and the use of words. Please do more. It never gets old because you use colorful and current examples. And refer to what is appearing in print all over the place indicating that editors are a dying breed. My first introduction to your work was "Dreyer's English." I became a devoted fan when I read your comments about considering where a word or a line break occurs on a page when you copyedit. I write directly in InDesign or Publisher because it matters to me what the page looks like. If rewriting a sentence or a paragraph means a phrase or a word will appear in a stronger spot on the page, I rewrite it. Another comment (confession) you made was about certain rules you can't remember and after 30 years still have to look them up. I felt less like an idiot for my cheat sheets on when "too" is "too." and when it is ", too." The topic I would welcome more haranguing about is book design. I read mostly nonfiction and I read the endnotes. I've accepted that footnotes are too distracting for most people, but endnotes should be easy to find. If the footnotes are arranged by the name of the chapter, the page headers need to include the name of the chapter. Otherwise, I have to go look for it. If only the chapter name is used in the header, the matching endnotes should not be identified only as "Chapter 3." The depth and breadth of the author's work are often revealed in the endnotes but matching them up requires me to develop a whole tracking system. And books without indexes! I've had to start creating my own. Why read the book at all if it won't be useful later to find the passages you want to quote or reread? I could go on but you get the idea. Thank you for joining SubStack which is more suited to actually saying things.
Wow, Sharon, this is amazing and much appreciated feedback. I'm fascinated by page makeup, and I've never really had much chance to talk about it since it's outside my so-called mission, but, sure, it would be fun to do a post about widows, orphans, bad breaks, all that good stuff. And endnotes too! (Or is that "And endnotes, too!"?) You've given me inspiration for at least a couple of solid posts, and I'll get to these soon. B
"Read it aloud" is advice I offer to my students every semester. It's generally clear who took that advice and who didn't. In my own writing, things are often either "actually" something or "apparently" something else (speaking of topics for one's psychoanalyst). I also never met a parenthetical aside that I didn't love.
Since you went to the editrix place…how about a column on your thoughts on gender in language? For example more female actors seem to be using actor instead of actress. See also, masseur and masseuse. Do we care? Is it something we should embrace or avoid for clarity, etc.?
I've been encouraging my son to go into editing/technical writing/copywriting. He's now fretting that he may need to rethink, because "won't AI be doing that now?". I suspect that it won't -- or at least that it won't be able to do it all. Or at all well. Would you please address this in a post? I would love to hear your take on AI.
I confess that I don't know all the much about AI, in part because I don't have to, and in part because I don't want to, but the little bits and pieces I've encountered/been exposed to simply remind me that concatenations of software can't do what actual, thoughtful people can do. I'd encourage you to continue to encourage your son to pursue the things he feels passionate about without worrying that he'll be shoved out of the way.
Hey, I like the way you write, too. I love that you'll come over and slap us silly because of wrongful apostrophe usage. That's not unsensible, actually.
In re: footnote 1 I observe that "aviatrix" has been deprecated in much of the aviation world. (I am a docent at a Large Things-That-Fly Museum so I dwell on this stuff a lot.) It seems, as well, that quite a few dramatic performers of the female gender these days use "actor" to denote their trade. Do you think we'll live long enough to witness the final "obs."-ing of the -trix and -ess forms or are they amusing enough to persist in common usage?
I think that the -trix variations are well and truly dead (and, yes, poetess and its sisters), and I would use one only in a winking sort of way, as I did here. By the way, and as you may well know, the word "aviatrix" figures prominently in Arthur Kopit's splendid play Wings, which is where I first encountered it. As to "actress," it'll last as long as the Oscars and Tonys continue to use it in their awards categories, but who knows when that will shift? And indeed a lot of female actors prefer to call themselves actors, and I'm the last person who'd disagree with them.
Well, we still have "dominatrix," one of those words that sound amazingly like what they mean.
In my life as a lawyer I occasionally encountered an "executrix," and that's a word I'd like to preserve.
Oh yes, one appreciates an executrix!
I love the Arthur Kopit reference; in my interview with Austin Pendleton, he talks a lot about Kopit's first play, "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad (A Pseudoclassical Tragifarce in a Bastard French Tradition)," which was Austin's first professional play too. Director Jerome Robbins made him audition six times, beginning a long and complicated working relationship.
I love footnotes so much.
I love anything you write about copy editing and the use of words. Please do more. It never gets old because you use colorful and current examples. And refer to what is appearing in print all over the place indicating that editors are a dying breed. My first introduction to your work was "Dreyer's English." I became a devoted fan when I read your comments about considering where a word or a line break occurs on a page when you copyedit. I write directly in InDesign or Publisher because it matters to me what the page looks like. If rewriting a sentence or a paragraph means a phrase or a word will appear in a stronger spot on the page, I rewrite it. Another comment (confession) you made was about certain rules you can't remember and after 30 years still have to look them up. I felt less like an idiot for my cheat sheets on when "too" is "too." and when it is ", too." The topic I would welcome more haranguing about is book design. I read mostly nonfiction and I read the endnotes. I've accepted that footnotes are too distracting for most people, but endnotes should be easy to find. If the footnotes are arranged by the name of the chapter, the page headers need to include the name of the chapter. Otherwise, I have to go look for it. If only the chapter name is used in the header, the matching endnotes should not be identified only as "Chapter 3." The depth and breadth of the author's work are often revealed in the endnotes but matching them up requires me to develop a whole tracking system. And books without indexes! I've had to start creating my own. Why read the book at all if it won't be useful later to find the passages you want to quote or reread? I could go on but you get the idea. Thank you for joining SubStack which is more suited to actually saying things.
Wow, Sharon, this is amazing and much appreciated feedback. I'm fascinated by page makeup, and I've never really had much chance to talk about it since it's outside my so-called mission, but, sure, it would be fun to do a post about widows, orphans, bad breaks, all that good stuff. And endnotes too! (Or is that "And endnotes, too!"?) You've given me inspiration for at least a couple of solid posts, and I'll get to these soon. B
"Read it aloud" is advice I offer to my students every semester. It's generally clear who took that advice and who didn't. In my own writing, things are often either "actually" something or "apparently" something else (speaking of topics for one's psychoanalyst). I also never met a parenthetical aside that I didn't love.
I noted when I was still at the office that I tended to use "apparently" when what I meant was "inarguably, but let's not point fingers."
Since you went to the editrix place…how about a column on your thoughts on gender in language? For example more female actors seem to be using actor instead of actress. See also, masseur and masseuse. Do we care? Is it something we should embrace or avoid for clarity, etc.?
So glad that Connie Schultz (or her algorithm) sent me here. Now I have to go find Dreyer's English....
I trust that we're united in our adoration of Connie Schultz, and I do hope that you enjoy m'book!
I've been encouraging my son to go into editing/technical writing/copywriting. He's now fretting that he may need to rethink, because "won't AI be doing that now?". I suspect that it won't -- or at least that it won't be able to do it all. Or at all well. Would you please address this in a post? I would love to hear your take on AI.
I confess that I don't know all the much about AI, in part because I don't have to, and in part because I don't want to, but the little bits and pieces I've encountered/been exposed to simply remind me that concatenations of software can't do what actual, thoughtful people can do. I'd encourage you to continue to encourage your son to pursue the things he feels passionate about without worrying that he'll be shoved out of the way.