Holidays can be challenging. Not just because of the interpersonal dynamics, but also because of the fact that not everyone celebrates them in the same way. Your family might have grown up with single presents on Christmas morning, while your neighbors had enough presents that they must have started wrapping over Thanksgiving. While, across the street, the folks with the menorah in the window may have spent every Christmas morning cleaning the house before going out for a movie and Chinese food. When we're growing up - and when we're grown - we sometimes forget that not everyone celebrates the same holidays. And it's not just religious holidays that can get this way. Consider the recent tren
Sometimes a misplaced modifier (those words or phrases that are supposed to talk about one thing, but seem to talk about another) are really just too fun to ignore. I came across this gem a while back, and it stayed with me (so to speak), so I decided that I had to share it: "Upon entry into the unnaturally silent apartment, the suitcase was exactly where it was supposed to be." I love the way that sentence progresses - from the creepy factor of the "unnaturally silent" room, to the kind of joyous feeling of knowing that the suitcase has found its place in the world. Let us hope that we all find ourselves as contented as that suitcase at least once in our lives. (Yes, I know that the author
When you're starting out doing freelance work, you tend to take jobs from pretty much anywhere. So, while my preference is for working with fiction and memoir, I work on a certain amount of book-length non-fiction, as well as short pieces (such as postcards, or two-page brochures, or annual reports, etc.). This means that I see all sorts of styles and text - some better than others. And, when I look at them, I have to not only try to make them make sense, but I also need to match the brand style. What is "brand style"? It can refer to the logo of a company, the colors that they use in their materials, or the music played in their ads or in their stores. For my purposes in editing and proofre
