A day to remember

Our day: Hi, gentle editorial folk. Happy National Punctuation Day (sixth annual). Today, we can celebrate syntax, hyphenations, colons, semicolons, commas, periods and ellipses. And we can explain to non-writers or copy editors that an ellipses has nothing to do with the moon covering up the sun.

Needs editing: I found this newspaper critique about a TV analyst — Collinsworth needs to drop a verbal tic that leads him to start sentences with the meaningless, “I’ll tell you what” or “I’ll be honest with you.” If you’re going to tell us something, just tell us. We assume honesty.

I once knew a TV sports guy who larded his work with extraneous words, and he wound up on one of the Major League movies. Maybe they liked the flabby verbiage.

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EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE

MORE EDITOR@WORK BLOG ENTRIES

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

BLOG ENTRIES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

ANECDOTES BY TOM GILLISPIE

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer OUTTA there!

ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

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BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL

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(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

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(the book of great NASCAR stories)

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