What’s not to love about a short quiz on some favourite head-scratchers in the English language? Answers are at the end. Award yourself a chocolate truffle for every question you answer correctly. 1. Which is correct? a) I’ve been racking…
There’s been a lot of fresh chatter recently among editors about rates. Maybe it’s because at this time of year we’re all looking over our accounts, reviewing how much we did—or didn’t—earn, paying bills, planning for the next 12 months,…
The WCEA partners know how to have fun, but navigating deadlines through the holiday season can be a challenge. Here are some suggestions to help you gain some semblance of work-life balance during the dark days of December. Books and…
’Tis the season for spooks, so what better time to talk about zombie rules? First, a little background. The term “zombie rules” was coined by Stanford linguistics professor Arnold Zwicky in a 2005 blog post: In the process of dissemination,…
Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday. Lacking the hype of Christmas (at least in Canada), it’s a time to be grateful for the things that enrich us—family, friends, and food for body and soul. In the latter category fall books, of…
We are delighted to announce today that Lana Okerlund is a new partner with West Coast Editorial Associates. A Vancouver-based editor, writer, and indexer, Lana works primarily on non-fiction books and publications. She is a Certified Copy Editor and Certified Proofreader, a trainer…
When I was a kid, I was certain I’d be a writer. I wrote constantly: poems, stories, plays, cartoons, newspapers, magazines (including the cover and fake ads), and novel beginnings—many, many beginnings. I didn’t care about quality or completion. I…
It seemed like a straightforward announcement from a body that is rarely in the public eye. On March 22, 2016, the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress (LoC), the national library of the United States, issued…
marathon: (n.) A long-distance running race, strictly one of 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 kilometres). A long-lasting or difficult task or activity; an endurance contest. Al Howie: The short warm-up run ahead of a very, very long outing. During a…
Carol Fisher Saller, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A, writes in her book The Subversive Copy Editor, “To see the author-editor relationship as inherently adversarial is to doom yourself to a career of angst and stress.” Fisher…
