I like big butts. I cannot lie.
This morning, I was telling Stacy this story:
Last night at work, one of our eagle-eyed copyediting freelancers, Steve, caught an inconsistency that almost made it into the magazine. He was reading a headline that had the word A-list in it. Being a hed, the A was capped, as it always should be anyway because you wouldn't spell it a-list, but in this case, list was lowercase. He brought it over to me and the following exchange occurred.
STEVE: Hm. I see that we're lowercasing the l in list here.
ME: Yes. A-list is hyphenated in the dictionary, so even in a hed, the list would be lowercase.
STEVE: But earlier today, we had boo-boos in a hed and we capped both Bs.
ME: [thinking] Oh my gosh, you're absolutely right. I totally missed it.
STEVE: So the second B should have been lowercase?
ME: Yes, because boo-boo is hyphenated in the dictionary. We can still fix it. Thank you so much for catching that. I completely missed it.
STEVE: OK, so just so I'm clear: If a compound is hyphenated in the dictionary and we're using it in a hed, we only uppercase the first letter of the first word, but not the first letter of the word following the hyphen. But if it's not hyphenated in the dictionary, then we cap both first letters.
ME: Yes.
STEVE: For example?
ME: OK. Well, like we said, boo-boo is hyphenated in the dictionary, so in a hed, it would be capital B, little o, little o, hyphen, little b, o, o. But if the headline was, say ...
[pause in conversation while I make up a headline]
ME: If the hed was, like, "Jennifer Lopez Is Butt-Heavy," you'd cap the H.
STEVE: [looking at me funny] OK.
ME: [starting to blush] Because, uh, butt-heavy isn't in the dictionary.
STEVE: [silent]
ME: So, um, the B and, uh, the H should both be capped. So.
STEVE: [grinning slyly] You just made that up, didn't you?
ME: I really, really did.
We started laughing, extolling the truth of the made-up hed, and went about our merry way. I fixed boo-boos. All was well.
So I told Stacy this story, as I've told it to maybe four other people. She said the exact same thing they all said:
"You have to put that on your blog."
I said I wasn't going to, that I much prefer to post other people's witticisms than my own, because I feel that patting myself on the back about how brilliantly hilarious I am is just a little too conceited, even for me, an admittedly conceited person. Aren't I pretty?
"See, though," she said, "you have to post it because it's the epitome of the kinds of conversations you have at work. Most people don't have those conversations at their jobs. Their work conversations go like this: [drops voice] 'Yes, uh, are you almost finished with your PowerPoint presentation?' [pitches voice] 'Almost, I can have it to you in two hours.' [drops voice] 'Well done. When you're finished, just download it to the share drive.' [back to Stacy-self] See? That's what people talk about at work. They don't talk about Jennifer Lopez's heavy butt."
"I guess."
"That was so true, by the way."
So there you have it. Because more than anything, Stacy's use of share drive made the whole thing worthwhile.
What's the most bizarre conversation you've had at work today?
Last night at work, one of our eagle-eyed copyediting freelancers, Steve, caught an inconsistency that almost made it into the magazine. He was reading a headline that had the word A-list in it. Being a hed, the A was capped, as it always should be anyway because you wouldn't spell it a-list, but in this case, list was lowercase. He brought it over to me and the following exchange occurred.
STEVE: Hm. I see that we're lowercasing the l in list here.
ME: Yes. A-list is hyphenated in the dictionary, so even in a hed, the list would be lowercase.
STEVE: But earlier today, we had boo-boos in a hed and we capped both Bs.
ME: [thinking] Oh my gosh, you're absolutely right. I totally missed it.
STEVE: So the second B should have been lowercase?
ME: Yes, because boo-boo is hyphenated in the dictionary. We can still fix it. Thank you so much for catching that. I completely missed it.
STEVE: OK, so just so I'm clear: If a compound is hyphenated in the dictionary and we're using it in a hed, we only uppercase the first letter of the first word, but not the first letter of the word following the hyphen. But if it's not hyphenated in the dictionary, then we cap both first letters.
ME: Yes.
STEVE: For example?
ME: OK. Well, like we said, boo-boo is hyphenated in the dictionary, so in a hed, it would be capital B, little o, little o, hyphen, little b, o, o. But if the headline was, say ...
[pause in conversation while I make up a headline]
ME: If the hed was, like, "Jennifer Lopez Is Butt-Heavy," you'd cap the H.
STEVE: [looking at me funny] OK.
ME: [starting to blush] Because, uh, butt-heavy isn't in the dictionary.
STEVE: [silent]
ME: So, um, the B and, uh, the H should both be capped. So.
STEVE: [grinning slyly] You just made that up, didn't you?
ME: I really, really did.
We started laughing, extolling the truth of the made-up hed, and went about our merry way. I fixed boo-boos. All was well.
So I told Stacy this story, as I've told it to maybe four other people. She said the exact same thing they all said:
"You have to put that on your blog."
I said I wasn't going to, that I much prefer to post other people's witticisms than my own, because I feel that patting myself on the back about how brilliantly hilarious I am is just a little too conceited, even for me, an admittedly conceited person. Aren't I pretty?
"See, though," she said, "you have to post it because it's the epitome of the kinds of conversations you have at work. Most people don't have those conversations at their jobs. Their work conversations go like this: [drops voice] 'Yes, uh, are you almost finished with your PowerPoint presentation?' [pitches voice] 'Almost, I can have it to you in two hours.' [drops voice] 'Well done. When you're finished, just download it to the share drive.' [back to Stacy-self] See? That's what people talk about at work. They don't talk about Jennifer Lopez's heavy butt."
"I guess."
"That was so true, by the way."
So there you have it. Because more than anything, Stacy's use of share drive made the whole thing worthwhile.
What's the most bizarre conversation you've had at work today?
posted by Marla at 3:14 PM
7 Comments:
On my lunch hour I went to Payless Shoes. There I had my most bizarre converstion of the work day. I exclaimed to a complete stranger that tall boots are not made for people with calves larger than my pinky finger. The woman heartily agreed with me. I don't know, bizarre, awkward, TMI?
Also... Jacob calls my Dad's wife "Grandma Boo-Boo." What is the proper upper/lower casing when using "Boo-Boo" as a proper noun?
I don't have a funny work story but I do have a point to make. See, I think you can lower case a-list... as in, "Tara Reid is so on the a-list." 'Cause in that case it's true... a-list doesn't mean the same in lower cases as it does in caps and Tara Reid fits that whole vibe of not being what she thinks she really is.
This kind of thing is what makes being a copyeditor worthwhile. Our daily lives are silliness-heavy.
Amy, I think your boot exchange was so brilliant and right-on. Even better, you had an enthusiastic supporter. You had the best possible outcome of the Random Person-on-the-Street Exchange: total support and understanding. And also? SO true.
I say, go with Boo-Boo. Let's not decrease Boo-Boo's importance by lowercasing her. Also, it's so cute.
Steph, the beauty of the alphabet is that Tara Reid doesn't have to be a-list if she can be, like, F-list. Or, for real, P-list. You can keep losering her down the alphabet. I still maintain the cap if the alphabet allows it. Mayhaps once she's losered her way through the alphabet, THEN you go back to the beginning and lowercase. "Z-list Tara Reid got her only gig this year: as a bartender at the finale party for The Hills. Welcome to the a-list!"
Mollie, I love how we embrace the silliness. Copyeditors are excellent folk. Also excellent? You're getting married in three weeks! Yay!
I. Am. Still. Laughing.
Bizarre, huh? How 'bout this. Today I helped my boss submit some paperwork to a state regulatory agency. We need a "sampling permit" for research we'll do this spring to study a fish population which is in bad shape - perhaps even past the point of natural recovery in our region. So they are rarer now than ever, and hard to find and count. Thus a study to understand what is happening.
So... the most bizarre point is in pondering the language for the permit. I quote: "All river herring takes (and mortalities of other species that are edible) will be donated to food banks with daily receipts obtained. There will be no sale of any fish (river herring or other species) collected on this permit."
See, the first lesson in biology is effectively 'you will kill what you study' for almost everybody except primate and marine mammal scientists. Some fish from this at-risk population will perish during the study so that we can understand things like the distribution of size and age inside schools of fish, ratios of male to female, and other such droll metrics that seem quite friendly on paper. I guess I've never harmonized with the death part of studying life. Bizarre experience, don't you think?
The world of a copyeditor might still win the contest!
You'll be happy to know that I just sought out this very blog post here at work in order to remind myself of the hyphen-in-a-hed rule. What luck, even, that you cited the exact same term (A-list) I was wondering about. Can we just print this as an appendix to the style sheet?
Post a Comment
<< Home