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Please report any mistakes or errors. Once reported, they will promptly be listed in the "Exceptions to Common Grammar, Usage, and Spelling Rules" section of Ralph's Usage Guide.

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Although Ralph's Manual of Style is already up and running, Ralph himself is still under construction. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Editors Unite

IT IS LITTLE KNOWN that in 1982, copy editors around the United States set down their pencils and went on strike to press for better working conditions. It is little known because, well, nobody noticed. Sure, misspellings began popping up in TV Guide, and newspapers began devoting entire sections to reporting the previous day's mistakes (in which they often misspelled misspelled), but other than that, few eyebrows were raised.

     You see, the American public suddenly found their print media easier to read, since publications were now spelling words the way that the American people were used to spelling them, which is to say, incorrectly.

     In shock, the nation's copy editors remained very very quiet about their strike, and returned to work telling their employers they were struck with colds. In most cases, once the employers remembered who they were, the copy editors were forgiven, though the Centers for Disease Control spent millions of dollars trying to isolate a mysterious bug that had apparently left millions of Americans bed-ridden.

     Unfortunately for the copy editors, however, a few people did notice their strike. In the White House, key devious plotters noticed, and they used the strike for their own evil purposes. They informed President Reagan and convinced him that this labor action could cripple the economy (ha-ha!), thus diverting their leader's attention and enabling them to go about their own devious deeds unnoticed.

     Many years later, when the president testified that he was "out of the loop," he was in fact out of the loop, because he was busy dealing with the Great Copy Editors Strike.

     What he did was this: He fired all copy editors and replaced them with striking air-traffic controllers and striking NFL players, which explains the current penchant among older copy editors for body-tackling anyone who omits a serial comma, and why people in the newsroom yell "Duck!" all the time.

     Meanwhile, millions of copy editors found themselves out of work. Most became real estate agents (quadrupling their incomes and their self-esteem overnight). Others became NFL players (it was a dull but grammatical season) and air-traffic controllers ("Chicago, three planes and a helicopter is coming right at us!" "Are, are coming right at you!").

     The lesson? Editors unite! Then go down to the local pub for a few drinks, and then go home and sleep it off. You have a busy day at work ahead of you tomorrow.

<-- BACK

Copyright 2005 by Ralph. All rights reserved

Doctors, lawyers,

and  accountants

live like kings (and

queens), while copy editors are left to cross their t's.

The problem is clarity: Copy editors are, by virtue of their trade, too well understood.

THIS IS THE MANUAL THAT

WILL CHANGE
ALL THAT!

THINK!  If people easily understand what you are paid to produce, then they are going to wonder why it is that they

are paying you

to produce it.

If, on the

other hand,

they can't grasp

a single word that comes out of your mouth (see doctors, lawyers,  and,   yes,

accountants),  then they will think you have some special, elite   knowledge

that  warrants  a

home in Beverly

Hills and, of

course, a

BMW.

Though

the  thick

volumes that

archive our trade knowledge hold just as  many   important- and foreign-sounding words  as  those texts of  other  professions (words   like   pluper-

fect, subjunctive and Starbucks) . . .  these very volumes ensure the general  public will   be   able  to

understand     the

end product with little more effort

than they spend watching TV.

THIS IS

WHERE RALPH'S MANUAL OF STYLE COMES IN.

Ralph's

Manual of

StyLe (RMS)

is guaranteed 

to confuse even those with multiple PhDs. Once the pub-

lishing world turns to RMS,   people   will have to hire a copy editor just to inter-

pret their TV

guides.

So throw

away all the

other books that

litter your shelves and  follow  Ralph's exclusively,  and  in no  time  at  all,  you will be able to afford a BMW, a Beverly Hills home, and possibly even

the services

of a doctor,

a lawyer,

or an

accountant.

--Ralph