See that? I haven't written a thing and already it looks like I goofed. The marketing geniuses for the new movie Emma. decided to put a period in the title. So it's Emma., not Emma. Emma.. See that? It's nearly impossible even to write about. Still confused? The issue...
Just Your Type
Type, design, writing and other funny stuffComposition
I ended a sentence with a preposition? Oh, crap!
"America", a fully-working solid gold toilet, created by artist Maurizio Cattelan, is seen at Blenheim Palace on September 12, 2019 in Woodstock, England. In September 2019, Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, installed a solid gold toilet. Two days...
The $156 Million Typo
Before we went to the Moon, we went to Venus. Sort of, anyway. We sent an unmanned probe there in 1962 to have a look around. Venus welcomed Mariner 2 on December 14, 1962, with a brisk 760 degree day. But that's nothing compared to the heat generated when its...
Glass houses: if you’re going to call out grammar…
This screen shot came from our local TV station. Take it from me: if you're giving advice about spelling and quality, maybe you should spring for a proofreader. That said, I had to look up "counterfeit" to see whether it was spelled correctly. That word looks wrong...
Is it ketchup or catsup?
Words matter. You want to get it right. So when it comes to ketchup versus catsup, which should you be using? Ketchup. See? See? I can get to the point. But I'm still going to ramble on about all the fun background bits. Like this, from our Department of Repetitive...
How to catch typos
I got an email from my beloved Alamo Drafthouse movie theater. A new location was about to open, right in my neighborhood. Hooray! Right after that email, I received this emergency follow-up: Just as an update, the $5 tickets was a miscommunication and we will be...
Is roman type really Roman?
Renaissance type designer Aldus Minutius You know what an italic font is. Bold type is simple enough to understand. Bold italic? Easy-peasy. But what if a font isn't any of those? If it's just straight-up normal, like the text you're reading right now? We call that...
Forward vs foreword
About one in twenty manuscripts we receive starts with a "Forward." That makes sense because at that point it's the only direction you can go in the book, unless you want to read the title page again. The problem is that it is wrong. Where are we going with this?...
Word spacing matters
Remember kids: many of us read left to right.