Category Archives: Uncategorized

• The Ohio chapter of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) is officially up and running, with our own web page and everything. We had our first-ever meeting last night (video chat over Google Hangouts), which – as chapter coordinator – I organized and ran. A lot of discussion and enthusiasm. I’ve never done anything like this before, but it’s been a pretty good time so far. Forward!
• Now editing my sixth book for publisher Pen-L.
• Friend, fellow author, and distinguished gentleman Ben Trube has another project in the works, which I’ll be copyediting today.
• This week I’ll be conducting several more local interviews for Run Life magazine. Never thought I’d get this much practice interviewing people!
• Work on The Crane Girl has stalled a bit with everything else going on, but I hope to get that moving again soon.

Recently I was editing a story in which a man and a woman are having sex (as men and women are wont to do). The man is looking the woman over appreciatively, taking in her numerous attributes, with particular attention to…”her bar.”

Her bar?

I’m not ashamed to say I have a pretty dirty mind, and I have spent my share of hours in the nether regions of the Interwebs, but I had no idea what this meant. Some kind of odd sex slang I’d never heard? I went to Google.

The problem is that googling “bar,” “woman’s bar,” “her bar,” “sex bar,” and so on, is that you just get results about alcohol-serving establishments. Same for Urban Dictionary. Google, my trusty steed, could not avail me that day.

I racked (not wracked) my brains. What on earth…?

And then, as if struck by a bolt from on high, I had a literary epiphany.

It wasn’t obscure terminology. It was a typo.

It was, of course, her bra.

Good morning, hypothetical reader. Happy 2016.

I’m going to switch to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for a while. Not that I was consistently posting five days a week before, by any means, but I’m making it official. Need to focus more on editing work this year. This also means Mondays are less likely to be “Transcendence” posts. And of course I still might do Tuesday and Thursday posts sometimes, if I feel like it, especially if it’s something short.

What’s that, hypothetical reader? You couldn’t possibly care less about the intricacies of my blogging schedule? Well, I get it, but you could’ve been nicer. It was the way you said it. I just felt it was rude.

On the plus side, Betsy and I finally finished reading Exodus, so I may have some thoughts about that Wednesday. We’re planning to jump to the New Testament for a bit and read Matthew next. After slogging through the absurdly detailed description of the Tabernacle – and then a later repetition, taken almost verbatim from the first description – well, we weren’t exactly clamoring for Leviticus. But we’ll get there eventually.

I’m off to do some (more) word-wrangling. Have a good year.

*gets on soapbox*

It’s no surprise that people are misusing “literally” a lot, and it seems to be getting worse.

At first, I mostly heard it used for the opposite of its true meaning – that is, people used it to mean “figuratively.” Something like, “He jumped out of the closet and literally gave me a heart attack.”

More recently, I also hear it used in a way that’s simply indifferent to its original meaning, in situations where literal vs. figurative use is not an issue. Sentences like, “I literally think it’s an amazing movie.”

In both cases, “literally” has lost its specific meaning and become merely an intensifier, similar to “really,” “honestly,” or (in the colloquial sense) “seriously.”

I think this is unfortunate, and not just because it drives me crazy.

Language nerds (who, me?) are always complaining that people write or speak “wrong.” Sins include using “who” instead of “whom,” “alumni” instead of “alumnus,” “lay” instead of “lie,” and on and on. In many cases, though, the rule is arbitrary – enforced only for consistency or for the sake of sounding smart. (Consistency does matter, but it’s generally not vital.) And in some cases – like “who” vs. “whom” – the rule is worse than useless, and its erosion is something worth cheering. Language changes, conventions evolve, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But “literally” is different.

For one thing, it creates real ambiguity. Sure, if you say “She literally bit my head off,” I can be pretty sure what you mean. But if you say “He’s literally good enough for the Olympics,” do you mean he’s in fact a world-class athlete, or just that he’s really good? If you say, “She’s literally a witch,” do you mean she’s a horrible person, or do you actually believe in witchcraft? I either let it go, rendering your sentence useless, or I’m forced to ask a follow-up question, which is annoying and maybe embarrassing.

Worse, though, misuse of “literally” destroys a unique and practical word. There are lots of intensifiers already, with new ones added all the time. But there’s only one “literally,” only one simple, elegant way to distinguish metaphor from straightforward language.

And if you mangle it…you’re killin’ me, Smalls. (Figuratively.)

*gets off soapbox*

(Figuratively.)