Lmst

Weirdly, on pg 182 he goes back and forth between calling his dad’s mistress Tamara and Tereh. One must be a real name and one fake and he just missed a couple replacements. He did something similar in the first edition of Fast Times, where he left in “Clairemont High” at least once. #copyediting

Never seen this unusual use of the word "across" to mean "au courant with" or "aware of." Or course it could just be a typo. #copyediting

"There was a team in the US State Department that was in contact with equivalent teams in those countries that (foolishly) were planning to join the US in its invasion. There was a sense of unreality in these discussions. It appeared that the team in State wasn't across the detail of the military plans, unable to co-ordinate with allies that were desperate to see some real plans on the table."

This reference to a "happy ending" in the NYT: I'm guessing many of their square readers won't know what this is, and it seems like the kind of thing the Times would usually explain, pedantically. But there's no way to explain this without getting explicit, so they just leave it there. #copyediting

Confronted by a sentence whose 3-word predicate follows a 64-word subject containing 4 nested subordinate clauses.

I'm going in. *cracks knuckles*

#AmEditing #copyediting #syntax #editing #writing #grammar

me: writes a simple sentence
GPT: adds an em dash, a comma splice, a sudden yearning for transcendence, and calls it ‘compelling copy.’

chill bro it’s a parking sign

#AIwriting #ChatGPT #copyediting 🤖✍️

Today someone called a layer of snow "shallow."

I don't think I've ever heard that used to describe snow. It feels wrong; even though (in the US at least) we say "deep" snow all the time. Shallow is for water, or people. Not for snow. Snow can be light or thin, but not shallow.

Do other people use this phrase? I know English is weird, but it startled me that I'd never noticed this quirk before.

#englishusage #copyediting #askmastodon #englishishard #americanenglish #BritishEnglish #irishenglish

"Teething troubles," in the sense of difficulty getting some new project or team off the ground, seems to be exclusively UK. The first time I heard it was from a manager I worked for who was Indian, presumably with a British education. #copyediting

There have been teething troubles. "Everybody wants to be a part of it," Trump insisted of his new club. But big European countries had already turned him down.

This is a typo in the lede or the math is wrong, right? They forgot a decimal point, and turned 3.39 million into 339 million!

7.92 million births
minus 11.31 million deaths /
= decrease of 3.39 million

Otherwise, China went through something in 2025 equal to what Poland suffered in World War II + the Holocaust, and we all missed it

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/chinas-population-falls-fourth-straight-year-rcna254757
#copyediting #China #editing #population

BEIJING — China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025, dropping by 339 million to 1.405 billion, a faster decline than 2024, official data showed Monday.

The total number of births in China dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, its lowest in decades, from 9.54 million in 2024. The number of deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed.

Ted Turton, the painter who co-founded the Galway Arts Festival, wrote a wonderful memoir about his adventures with the legendary Footsbarn Travelling Theatre. I had the pleasure of copy-editing it.

Here's a short review in the Irish Times, and Ted's testimonial for my work. If you're looking for an editor or proofreader, I'm available!

https://tedturtonart.com/
https://stancarey.com/testimonials/

#books #memoir #theatre #IrishBooks #TedTurton #Footsbarn #painting #copyediting #editing #Mastodaoine #arts

Cover of Ted Turton's book "My Travels with Footsbarn Theatre: A Memoir". It features a painting by the author, mostly in attractive pastels of blue, green and yellow-orange. It shows a giant figure in silhouette striding across a landscape. He has a ponytail and a pole, wears a coat and boots, and is smiling. In the foreground is a town, with a cat on a roof looking down on street performers moving across a bridge. Beyond the town is a sea with small boats to the left and mountains to the right, in the distance. The striding figure behind the mountains makes them look tiny. At the top is a quote from Michael D. Higgins, former president of Ireland: "...an evocative reminder that the arts can be a bridge between cultures...in a world that now finds itself divided and in conflict".

My Travels with Footsbarn Theatre: A Memoir, by Ted Turton.
Liffey Press, 220 pages, €22.95.
To describe Footsbarn as an experimental theatre company is to understate. In this circus-like group, children accompany their actor parents, babies are born on the road, and an endless cycle of romances blossom and wither. Wacky adventures across Europe, USA and Australia in the "freewheeling" 1980s fill this memoir. Of course, communities on the fringes encounter others on the fringes – the Gypsies, shepherds and First Nations communities who shared in Footsbarn's journey add further colour. The strongest element of this lively book is the author's artwork – in particular the posters Turton created for the theatre company – otherwise, this memoir will find its appeal with those curious about the footloose adventures of the travelling group.
Source: Irish Times, 17 Jan. 2026

"Working on my book manuscript with Stan Carey was much easier than I expected. Having published dozens of images with confidence as a painter and designer, I was a complete novice when it came to publishing as a writer. So I was nervous and concerned that an editor might tear the thing to shreds. There was no need to worry. Stan was respectful and enthusiastic, taking care to keep the essence of the written work and the nature of the storytelling.
As a copy-editor, Stan took care of everything including details like checking foreign place names and historical events as well as the copy style. He picked up on phrases I’d used too often and passages that were unnecessary or verbose. After the first few exchanges between us, I realised how futile it is to try to edit your own work beyond the rudimentary spell check. I would happily work with him again."
Ted Turton
Author, My Travels with Footsbarn Theatre: A Memoir
Clifden, County Galway, Ireland
Source: stancarey.com/testimonials

Odds are a tricky thing to describe in simple newspaper-y metaphors. When something becomes more likely to happen, have the odds gone up or down, or what? These are both from today's FT, describing the same thing. #copyediting

Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:

ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede

¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.

#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading

This is clever. There are times when you want to use nonstandard capitalization, but the word falls at the beginning of a sentence, so no one will be aware that you've capitalized it. (In that case, reword the sentence.) #copyediting

Oddest caption I've seen this year:
"In a healthy garden where the material is quickly by the garden where. In a healthy garden where the material is quickly by plus fill out little."
A little cryptic, but I think it can be parsed as "we decided to economize on the copy-editing".
#books #CopyEditing

Editing catch of the day:

A reference to Chico in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is now a reference to Chico in "A Fistful of Dollars". A good reminder of the always-look-it-up principle

#AmEditing #copyediting #proofreading #editing