It isn’t enough that copy editors have to spend the runup to Christmas deleting hackneyed holiday ledes from stories about seasonal recipes and gift exchanges. Now, they’re sending out yuletide cards that offer a festive reminder of all the ulcer-inducing errors they’re bound to fix.
Copy editors at The Times of London (or sub editors, for our brethren across the pond) have created the following Christmas card chronicling every redundant phrase they’ve pruned during this year. They include typical bugaboos like “previous experience” and “other alternatives” in addition to some truly bewildering defects: “transforming moment that would change his life,” “pen her own autobiography,” “consume orally.”
Our fabulous sub-editors made us a Christmas card of all the tautologies they caught before they went in the paper. pic.twitter.com/cegdIRJLXp
— Neil Fisher (@nfmusic) December 18, 2015
As the consolidation of media continues apace and copy desks get slashed, this card adds the Christmas bonus of reminding newsroom brass that copy editors are still critically important.
