Writing & editing

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This Is America: Unity From Diversity

Final chapters are always difficult, and I put a lot of time into "Unity from Diversity," the last chapter of This Is America, which we're thrilled to announce on the 4th of July 2014, US Independence Day. I’d had little involvement in creating this book, and I need it as much as anyone because I ignored US history

By |2014-07-03T14:44:00-04:00July 3rd, 2014|Karen's Letter|0 Comments

Fun with “parallel constructions”!

Hey boys and girls! Today's topic is "parallel constructions." Why, in God's name, do I want to discuss something with such a horrible sounding name? Parallel construction is the art of keeping lists in your writing consistent, whether it's a list of things you're going to do on vacation, a list of things that drive you

By |2014-03-28T12:15:26-04:00March 28th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments

That vs. Which and “Why the Left Hates Families”

When we were on vacation in Britain earlier this month I noticed that people seldom made a distinction between "which" and "that" in sentences, and I've been reading a bunch of British books and noticed the same thing. I was starting to question my sanity a little bit, because I'm 99% sure I know when to

By |2013-07-23T15:34:55-04:00May 16th, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Technology and Innovation and Web Design, Oh My!

Anybody who knows me knows that technology is NOT my middle name. (My middle name is actually “Give Him an Inch and He’ll Take a Yard.”) In recent years working at Berkshire, though, technology has been thrust upon me. I now understand enough about how computers work to get frustrated when things don’t appear to be

By |2013-01-18T11:25:28-05:00January 18th, 2013|Uncategorized|1 Comment

Words and Pictures – Can’t We All Get Along?

I just finished a marvelous book with the dry-as-dry-toast name The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by a Yale statistician and sculptor named Edward R. Tufte. I've come to learn that the book is considered the Elements of Style of charts - a true classic. This may be apocryphal, but he is known for the great

By |2013-01-08T14:16:23-05:00November 30th, 2012|Uncategorized|1 Comment

Soccer, football, meters, and yards

Here's a note I sent to Karen Christensen, our CEO and one of the editors of the original Encyclopedia of World Sport, that will turn up eventually in the introduction to the third edition, I suppose, because it explains a point that is of great importance to a lot of readers around the world: Dear Karen,

By |2012-10-29T13:06:42-04:00October 29th, 2012|Uncategorized|1 Comment

For Whom the Knock Knock Joke Tolls

"Knock knock" "Who's there?" "To" "To who?" "To WHOM!!!"  (To be said in an exasperated manner.) Or, as I originally told this, in telling it to my co-worker, Mar: "Knock knock" ... "who's there"? "Who" ... "who who"? "Uhhhh...." Telling jokes has never been one of my talents. The point of this inane joke is that

By |2012-07-17T14:38:27-04:00July 17th, 2012|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Chinese names in current China news

By Karen Christensen The press has done a fairly good job with Chinese names in all the recent reporting, though I did see a few references to "Bo Bo Guagua." But this interesting Bloomberg report goofed at one point: Through Hitoro, Wangjiang and Wangning, who retained her Chinese citizenship, owned Beijing Jiahua Investment Consulting Co. via

By |2012-04-15T18:21:49-04:00April 15th, 2012|Uncategorized|0 Comments

From the Christian Science Monitor: “Usage should reflect how we think about the online world”

By Karen Christensen Berkshire still uses uppercase for the word Internet. Our Manual of Style, reflecting Chicago and standard US usage, says, "Internet (not 'the Net')." I would add to that, actually, a plea: not the 'net or the 'Net either. But that use of uppercase is a matter we should consider, it seems, according to

By |2012-03-26T19:01:09-04:00March 26th, 2012|Uncategorized|0 Comments

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