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Laura J. MacKay
Copywriter & Editor
Online Language & Reference
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the publishing industry standard, online.
The Chicago Manual of Style Web site, CMOS is the book-publishing industry standard (other media use it too). You can sign up for a free trial of the online manual. I am a happy subscriber, even though I have the hardcover.
Bartleby.com. In its own words, “Bartleby.com combines the best of both contemporary and classic reference works into the most comprehensive public reference library ever published on the web.” Dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, geographical information, collections of quotations, English language usage guides, and more.
Library Spot. Another comprehensive guide to major online reference sources.
Copyediting. The foremost newsletter for style advice and news on language trends. I subscribe. Request a free sample issue at the site.
The Slot. A site for copy editors, brought to you by Bill Walsh, a copy editor for the Washington Post. I sometimes go here for sensible, well-reasoned, and often entertaining guidance on matters of style.
For the Bookshelf
Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd Edition is the go-to grammar, usage, and style reference for many copy editors and writers. It’s a fat, serious reference, yet pretty accessible. Here’s what the late David Foster Wallace had to say about the last edition in an April 2001 Harper’s magazine review: “The book’s ‘feel-good’ spirit (in the very best sense of ‘feel-good’) marries rigor and humility in such a way as to allow Garner to be extremely prescriptive without any appearance of evangelism or elitist putdown. This is an extraordinary accomplishment.”
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the publishing industry standard. It comes with a CD-ROM, which I usually constantly. The book, I have to admit, comes off the shelf only rarely, mainly for Scrabble games. Sometimes I miss stumbling across new words while looking things up, but when I’m working, such distractions do not serve my clients!
Art
Chakaia Booker. I was introduced to Booker’s ominous, organic rubber tire sculptures years ago at the Whitney Biennial. I’d never seen anything like them. Get a look at her work here. Here is a picture of her, and a profile.
Anselm Kiefer. Described as a “poet of war,“ this German artist is, like his country, profoundly influenced by World War II. This is serious, transcendent work. As with most art, you can’t begin to experience its impact through photographs, but here is one good image gallery.
Kwang-Young Chun, a South Korean artist, specializes in using old handmade mulberry paper to make “aggregations” of thousands of folded paper blocks, typically in what I suppose you would call bas-relief form. I fell in love with his work the moment I saw it in a Chicago gallery and fervently wish I could collect it. Photos can’t do the work justice, but here’s his New York Gallery, a selection of pieces at artnet, and a New York Times article about him.
People and Stuff I Like
Yugo Nakamura. Check out this renowned Web designer’s mesmerizing animated clock. I go back to it again and again to just stare for a few minutes. You’ll find a profile and interview here.
Amanda Jones. I love this dog photographer. Dog-lovers will want to sign up for the Dog of the Month Club. As a cat owner who grew up with dogs and needs a regular fix, I light up when I see Dog of the Month in my in-box.
Maru. Maru is a cat, Scottish fold to be specific, who lives in Japan. He has a Web site, a book series, a Facebook page. Sometimes, after reading too much bad news of the world, I say, time to visit Maru. And then I do.
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Copyright by Laura MacKay, www.copywriter-editor.com
Spotlight on
Oscar Wilde
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
“I don’t say we ought to misbehave, but we should look as though we could.”
“To live is the rarest thing in the world.
Most people exist, that is all.”
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes
to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
“I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”
“I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.”