A World Without "Whom"

readability may be an issue, which is why I’d opt for pre-op rather than preop, side-eye rather than sideeye, and gun-shy rather than gunshy

Bryan A. Garner’s Garner’s Modern English Usage, also known to many in the editing world as the bible

foot and inch marks—technically known as the prime and double prime symbol, respectively—(

Italicize franchise names, however, when referring to a media series: e.g., “the Saw movies,”

Traditionally, curly (or so-called “smart”) quotes have had a use distinct from straight (also called “regular” or the not-so-nice “dumb”) quotes. Pairs of the former are used to enclose quoted material—and they’re “smart” enough to know when to open a quote and when to close it, hence the moniker—while the latter should be reserved for, say, the s

it’s generally a safe bet to hyphenate the following: •Compound modifiers consisting of two or more adjectives that precede a noun and act as a single idea, like silly-looking monster (to differentiate from a jovial monster whose primary responsibility is to look).

•Bantu names (East/Southern Africa) typically place the family name first and given name second.

the names of edible things that are derived from a proper noun (usually a geographic location, sometimes a person’s name)—especially when the item in question consists solely of the proper noun (e.g., Brie, as opposed to Brussels sprouts)—are typically capitalized.

Descriptivists believe that language should be defined by those who use it; they observe and record, and so “correctness” is an ever-changing notion based on how people are writing and speaking at any given time.