Copyeditor's Manifesto
Updated December 16, 2004.
A lot of this may seem silly and basic, but you would be amazed at how the English language can be mutilated.
Parts of Speech
Noun: a person, place, thing, or concept
Jen is the editor.
Pronoun: a word that stands in place of a noun
She is a jerk.
Verb: a word that denotes an action or a state of being
He never wears shoes. (action)
He is fun to tease. (state of being)
Adjective: a word that modifies a noun or pronoun
Jen rarely gets enough sleep.
Adverb: a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb
He frequently smokes horribly disgusting cigarettes.
Preposition: a word that shows the relationship between its object and another word in the sentence
She lives in this office. (‘office’ is the object of ‘in’)
Conjunction: a word that links to parts of a sentence
Jen is a trial, but we put up with her.
Interjection: a word that denotes strong feeling
Man! Jen sure looks haggard today.
In contractions, apostrophes represent the missin’ letters.
All singular nouns show possession with an ‘apostrophe-s’ even if the noun already ends with an ‘s’. Plural nouns that do not end in ‘s’ also show possession with an apostrophe-s. Plural nouns that end in ‘s’ show possession with an apostrophe at the end of the word.
Singular: Mr. Jon
Singular possessive: Mr. Jon’s
Singular: Mr. Jones
Singular possessive: Mr. Jones’s house
Plural: the Joneses
Plural possessive: the Joneses’ house
Also plural possessive: the women’s house
When placing an unusual term or the title of a published work in quotation marks, remember that the quotation marks become part of the term or title, and that all other marks of punctuation that are not part of the title go outside the quotation marks.
Over the Christmas holidays, I listened to “Jingle Bells”, “Carol of the Bells”, and “Deck the Halls”.
A sentence that is a quotation of someone’s speech should be written as its own individual sentence contained within the quotation marks.
He said, “I can’t take this
anymore!”
A whole sentence that would ordinarily end with a period but is quoted as part of a larger sentence ends with a comma inside the quotation marks.
He said, “I need a cigarette in the worst way,” and then he
walked out of the room.
For whole sentence that would ordinarily end with one of the other end marks, but that mark inside the quotations and then carry on with the sentence.
He shrieked, “I can’t take this anymore!” and then he fizzled
into a seething puddle of boiling acid and disappeared before our very eyes.
Do not put extra commas or periods outside of the quotation marks.
Use double quotes for everything except quotes within quotes; then use single quotes.
He grumble, “I read ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ yesterday
and it was horrible!”
The four end marks exist in a hierarchy. They are comma, semi-colon, colon, and period, in order from weakest to strongest. In short, the comma separates the parts of a list. The semi-colon separates parts of a list where the parts are long and complicated and it also separates complete sentences. The colon only introduces a list, although you can have a list of one. The period ends a sentence. If used correctly, the end marks work together in perfect harmony.
Dinner was horrible as usual; Marriott served three things:
raw sewage with peas, carrots, and undercooked broccoli; toxic waste a la
king with putrid salmonella-ridden chicken, tarragon, and one other strangely
suspicious mystery spice that might have been ginger; and for dessert, sugared
monkey entrails in a sauce of rancid butter-cream.
a) ‘It’s is a contraction of ‘it is’
‘Its’ is a possessive pronoun
It’s really too bad that the dog didn’t get
its dinner last night.
b) ‘Two’ is the number 2.
‘To’ is a preposition
‘Too’ is an adverb
Two people went to the store that sold
apples, pears, and shoes, too.
c) ‘Who’s’ is a contraction of ‘who is’
‘Whose’ shows possession
Who’s the loser whose wallet I found
in the garbage bin?
d) ‘They’re ‘ is a contraction of ‘they are’.
‘There’ is an adverb.
‘Their’ shows possession.
They’re the fools who never remember that their mailboxes
are over there.
e) ‘Which’ is a relative pronoun.
‘Witch’ is a noun.
The witch wears a long pointed hat, which
she found in Sally Anns’s.
A sentence must have a subject and a verb. Sometimes, however, the subject is not written but implied.
Hold down the fort. (‘You’ is the implied subject)
A string of words that does not boast a subject and a verb is not a real sentence and is therefore forbidden.
The four-horse chariot in my garage. (no verb)
Flew to the moon. (no subject.)
Two complete sentences that are joined together with a comma constitutes a comma-splice. Comma-splices are forbidden.
The Federal Minister of the
Environment is coming to Mount Allison, they forgot to tell
Sam about it until yesterday.
To fix a comma-splice, replace the comma with a semi-colon or a period and a capital letter or a conjunction.
A verb construction placed incorrectly in a sentence is (usually) a dangling participle or a dangling modifier.
Walking down the street, the doll in the window jumped out at me and I decided that
I needed her.
We all know that the doll could not have been walking down the street. To avoid this confusion, write:
When
I was walking down the street, the doll in the window jumped out at me and
I decided that I needed her.
Make sure that verbs agree with their subjects. And remember, pronouns such as ‘everyone’ and ‘everybody’ are singular, and so they require singular verbs. Pronouns such as ‘some’, ‘many’, ‘all’, and ‘few’ are plural, and so require plural verbs.
Everyone loves his oatmeal. Many require
that their oatmeal has brown sugar to make it taste just
right.
Now there is a common grammar issue that makes many people indignant: As a rule, pronouns such as ‘everyone’ are completed with masculine singulars such as ‘he’ and ‘his’. Many people think this is a sexist linguistic throwback, which it is but welcome to the West, baby. Whichever way you feel, to complete indefinite pronouns with words like ‘they’ and ‘their’ is wrong and therefore forbidden. If you must, use ‘her’ or ‘his or her’ or possibly ‘its’ instead.
As a general rule, it is not good form to end a sentence with a preposition, because a preposition by its nature requires and object. If you can, invert the problematic phrase.
That
is the tree he sat under.
That
is the tree under which he sat.
If you can’t, don’t worry about it.
Steps to Copy Editing Perfection:
After having said all this, it should be pointed out that there are instances where grammar is plum thrown out the window. As this is primarily a literary zine, there will be times when common grammatical rules are purposely flouted. The obvious examples are poetry, but this can also happen in prose, editorial rants, etc. Poetry should only be check for spelling. Editorials should only have major errors changed. Prose can be difficult to judge sometimes; the Zine promotes experimentation and general oddity in writing. Therefore, whenever possible there will be a note included with prose pieces to indicate how stringent the editing should be. If it seems that the piece is using proper grammar throughout, than attempt to be consistent. If you are ever unsure, contact the Senior Editor (Jen) and/or the Section Editor (if there is one) and ask them.