Self-Portrait Challenge: Introduction

The theme for this month’s Self-Portrait Challenge is “Introduce Yourself.” (By the way, Self-Portrait Tuesday is now called Self-Portrait Challenge. So I'm not late, I swear.) Anyway, I thought I’d start with the basics, for example, my job.

I am a copy editor for a group for trade publications. My job is to fix grammatical errors, check for libelous or untrue statements and basically make your writing sound pretty.

So, what happens is you turn in your carefully crafted prose to me, and I do this to it:



Then you read it in the magazine later, and you don’t realize I changed a thing. Why? Because generally I don’t change what you say. I just change how you say it.

For example, you say: “The performance management initiatives are managed by the leadership development team.”

And I say, “Your passive voice hurts my eyeballs. And how many times can you use some form of ‘manage’ in one sentence?" And I change it to: “The leadership-development team handles the performance-management initiatives.”

Then you say: “To properly manage talent, executives must …”

And I say, “Split infinitives? Hell no.” And I change it to, “To manage talent properly...” Or sometimes I delete your adverbs all together because most of the time they’re useless anyway.

So yeah, that’s what I do, ALL DAY. I also write a little bit and post some magazine content on our Web sites. But pretty much, I copyedit and proofread.

Unfortunately, copyediting full time has turned me into one of those people that corrects other people’s grammar. I hate those people. You know, the ones that say, “No, you tell the dog to go lie down, not lay down.” Yeah, that’s me.

I also yell at the television a lot. When the idiot newscaster says, “There are over 100,000 immigrants literally filling the streets right now,” I yell back, “Over 100,000? What, are they somehow suspended over the streets? Learn about prepositions, moron. There are more than 100,000 immigrants in the streets. And you don’t need to say literally filling the streets. We know they’re actually there. We can see them on the television thanks to Chopper Live. It’s not like we thought they were just pretending to fill streets. Oh, and by the way, that fuchsia pantsuit you think is so cute makes you look fat.”

Yep, that’s my introduction. And that word you’re looking for right now? I believe it’s “nerd.”


I’m sure at this point many of you are scouring my blog looking for grammatical errors. You’ll probably find a ton. I don’t copyedit my blog because you’re never supposed to copyedit your own writing. That, and I’m a huge hypocrite.