June 12, 2006
You may think it's close enough for rock and roll, but the Chicago Manual of Style disagrees
Pitchfork needs a copy editor today (even more than it usually does). I assume they meant that Eddie Vedder and Josh Homme would be desecrating the memory of Marvin Gaye's vocal performance by covering "Mercy Mercy Me", not desiccating it (points for not misspelling "desiccating" as "dessicating", though). And the review for the new Sonic Youth is a total mess. Here are my notes:
Add hyphen to "super-chiseled" in "super chiseled physique". (Unless you mean that the album's chiseled physique is just super!)Delete "in" in "Sonic Youth manage to sneak in all sorts of noisy accents, oddball tunings, and crescendo transitions into their so-called pop record" -- redundant.
Change "runs through" to "run-throughs".
Delete final E of "premiere" in "New York's premiere avant-garde group".
Per "Daydream Nation", the title of the first Kim Gordon song you mention is spelled "Kissability".
En dash in "Glenn Branca-like".
"...it [could] MAY be a love song"? What the hell? Pick a word and stick with it.
No hyphen in "overcooked".
Change "loose" to "lose" in "things loose a little oomph".
"Thank you" as a noun is hyphenated and does not take an apostrophe when pluralizing (so change to "thank-yous").
Delete "a" in "as a good reason as any".
And I obviously prefer to place punctuation outside quotation marks, but do be consistent about it if that's your house style.
The first one is free, Pitchfork. You want more, I need to start seeing some promo CDs.
Posted by Francis at 11:32 AMThe whole world needs a copy editor. I've been concentrating my energies on "Wordplay" materials (like the release that talks about "Yankee's ace pitcher Mike Mussina").
Posted by: Ellen at June 12, 2006 12:24 PMI'm glad it was just an error, and my moist memory of Gaye's performance is safe.
Posted by: Rick at June 12, 2006 03:23 PMPersonally, I prefer "things unloose a little oomph," though that probably conveys the opposite sense.
Unloose the oomph!
Posted by: Orange at June 12, 2006 05:24 PMHey cool, I didn't know there was a new Sonic Youth album!
Posted by: Doug Orleans at June 12, 2006 07:05 PMSend it to them! Send it to them!
Posted by: Emily at June 13, 2006 01:09 PM>Delete "in" or "into" in "Sonic Youth manage to sneak in all sorts of noisy accents, oddball tunings, and crescendo transitions into their so-called pop record" -- redundant.
Deleting "into" won't work. Replacing it with "to," maybe?
Posted by: Martha at June 15, 2006 11:23 AMMy mistake -- should just delete "in". Let me fix that.
Posted by: Francis at June 15, 2006 11:30 AM> "Thank you" as a noun is hyphenated and does not take an apostrophe when pluralizing
In your opinion, does anything take an apostrophe when pluralizing?
Posted by: Matt M at June 16, 2006 12:39 AMSure: "There are three L's in a row in the phrase 'still life'."
Posted by: Francis at June 16, 2006 01:48 AMAlso, "Hot dog's and frie's."
Posted by: Orange at June 16, 2006 07:51 PM