Back in the day, an editor's lament

 An opportunity rose the other day that would have proved satisfying to every copy editor who ever
lived—a phrase ubiquitous in the writing world that is unnecessary and redundant. It’s one that has irritated me for years.

Perhaps I should explain further. What is a copy editor? The job is so misunderstood few people even realize it exists. The owner and editor of a paper where I worked a few years ago actually asked me what a copy editor does. When I told her reads and corrects stories and writes headlines, she said she couldn’t believe anyone would do that. I felt so valued that day.

But, that’s essentially the job. You read stories, fixing spelling and grammar mistakes, try to catch factual errors, even smooth out the writing so it presents a clear, factual account of whatever the reporter is writing about. You are truly the last gatekeeper before a story reaches the public.

There are lots of rules. Basic grammar thanks to E.B. White; usage rules contained in the AP stylebook, the universal bible of newspapers; and then there are usually local usage rules. Example: in Alaska you do not identify a person as a Native in a headline unless it is important to the story. Also, you need to know how to spell Utqiaġvik. To do this job well, a good copy editor is also a fountain of what others would call useless knowledge. Don’t ever play Trivia with a copy editor. (I once won a game in one turn).

But, back to those rules. In addition to all those sources of rules, most of us have our own personal set. Some are already written somewhere and others are our very own and some people take them very seriously. Also, they can evolve or change over the years. For example, when I first turned pro you capitalized President, even when it stood alone if it referred to the president of the U.S. However, after about a 20-year absence the rule had changed to president, lower case, when standing alone. With the change younger copy editors are working with a different set of what can only be called pet peeves than the one I came up with. Another thing that changed over those 20 years was now you only leave one space between sentences instead of the two I had known. How seriously do people take that? One fellow commenting on an Internet post said it made him furious when somebody put two spaces instead of one. Furious. I have mellowed, I commented back that if two spaces made him furious, he was going to die of a heart attack by the time he turns 40.

Of course, there are things that bother me too, not to the point of furiousness anymore, but irritating, nonetheless. 

For instance, is there an athlete or a sports announcer who can say “each” or “every” individually? Nope. It’s always “each and every.” Listen for it.

But that’s not used much in print. Now we are back to the minor victory I alluded to at the beginning. It has seemed to me that no writer or broadcaster can refer to an incident in the past without using the phrase “back in” as in “back in the 70s” or “back in 1950.” “In the 70s” or “in 1950” are sufficient without the extra word which appears almost as much as this construction does.

These days I edit a quarterly professional publication for an organization where almost everyone is a college graduate, and most write fairly well. We have had some discussions about style but not my personal preferences. That guy who hated two spaces would go nuts, so would someone irritated over excessive capitalization. Fixing those is tedious, but it’s their publication, not mine. But when the story I was editing yesterday started out “Back in the 70s …” just try to imagine the glee I took in deleting the excess word.

Not furiously but with great satisfaction, I kept it out of one minor publication one time. Yay. A victory if only a minor one. 

Sometimes this effort feels almost noble, as if we are the guardians of the language, the soldiers on the front lines making sure it is used properly. At others you feel like you are totally ineffective, unappreciated, viewed at times as a hinderance to be tolerated, and an antagonist in the life of a writer. Personally I look at part of the responsibility as helping the people we edit become better writers. Of course it seems the majority of them don't think that's our job at all. I take it one misused phrase at a time.

Now, if anyone cares to go into this further, I have a huge list of phrases we could discuss so, beware of what you ask for.