Jonathon Owen
@arrantpedantry.com
Editor • Writer • Linguist • Ironic meta-pedant • Villain • Cat person
Blog: https://www.arrantpedantry.com
Merch: https://arrantpedantry.myspreadshop.com
Blog: https://www.arrantpedantry.com
Merch: https://arrantpedantry.myspreadshop.com
The point of crediting your sources is (1) to acknowledge the work that you're building on and (2) to let readers know where to go if they want more information. Posting a vague catch-all doesn't accomplish either of those things.
January 12, 2026 at 10:59 PM
The point of crediting your sources is (1) to acknowledge the work that you're building on and (2) to let readers know where to go if they want more information. Posting a vague catch-all doesn't accomplish either of those things.
Yup. Whenever I see pages and pages of consistent but incorrect changes, I wonder how many real errors they overlooked. bsky.app/profile/coco...
the best thing about obsessing over one thing that occurs all the time is that you miss actual corrections bc your attn is on the uninteresting thing 👍
January 12, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Yup. Whenever I see pages and pages of consistent but incorrect changes, I wonder how many real errors they overlooked. bsky.app/profile/coco...
We literally sent the proofreader a link to it, but that doesn't guarantee that they read it.
January 12, 2026 at 6:49 PM
We literally sent the proofreader a link to it, but that doesn't guarantee that they read it.
Yes. And Chicago style has changed over the years, but our house style guide, which the proofreader should have read, is clear on the issue.
January 12, 2026 at 6:48 PM
Yes. And Chicago style has changed over the years, but our house style guide, which the proofreader should have read, is clear on the issue.
True fact: The more things you mark, the better a copyeditor or proofreader you are! This is especially true if you mark a lot of inconsequential things, because it proves you are more sensitive and discerning.
bsky.app/profile/coco...
bsky.app/profile/coco...
but it makes me feel so productive! 😇
January 12, 2026 at 6:46 PM
True fact: The more things you mark, the better a copyeditor or proofreader you are! This is especially true if you mark a lot of inconsequential things, because it proves you are more sensitive and discerning.
bsky.app/profile/coco...
bsky.app/profile/coco...
(The change in question is capitalizing words after colons. Our style guide lowercases them, and they were consistently lowercased, but that didn't stop this very determined proofreader from marking them all to be capitalized.)
January 12, 2026 at 6:42 PM
(The change in question is capitalizing words after colons. Our style guide lowercases them, and they were consistently lowercased, but that didn't stop this very determined proofreader from marking them all to be capitalized.)
Also consider all the time and effort someone else is going to have to spend either entering a few hundred pointless changes or stetting them all.
January 12, 2026 at 6:40 PM
Also consider all the time and effort someone else is going to have to spend either entering a few hundred pointless changes or stetting them all.
Even if it is called for by the style guide, you should ask yourself whether it's worth the time and effort to mark hundreds and hundreds of things that but maybe not in line with the style guide or whether you should just leave them because they were consistent and not actually wrong.
January 12, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Even if it is called for by the style guide, you should ask yourself whether it's worth the time and effort to mark hundreds and hundreds of things that but maybe not in line with the style guide or whether you should just leave them because they were consistent and not actually wrong.
I think some people are also so primed to trust law enforcement or right-wing media or Dear Leader that they just see what they want to see.
January 9, 2026 at 8:21 PM
I think some people are also so primed to trust law enforcement or right-wing media or Dear Leader that they just see what they want to see.
By the way, this kind of rebracketing (where a sound hops from the end of one word to the beginning of the next or vice versa) happens a lot with "n", but that's a topic for a whole nother day.
January 8, 2026 at 10:25 PM
By the way, this kind of rebracketing (where a sound hops from the end of one word to the beginning of the next or vice versa) happens a lot with "n", but that's a topic for a whole nother day.
And thus a new word that means exactly the same thing as "other" but with a weird extra "t" on the front was born.
January 8, 2026 at 10:12 PM
And thus a new word that means exactly the same thing as "other" but with a weird extra "t" on the front was born.
"That" (and unstressed forms like "thet") survived not as an article but as a demonstrative pronoun. People still said "thet other", but it no longer made sense as a neuter article plus "other", so it was reanalyzed as "the" plus "tother".
January 8, 2026 at 10:12 PM
"That" (and unstressed forms like "thet") survived not as an article but as a demonstrative pronoun. People still said "thet other", but it no longer made sense as a neuter article plus "other", so it was reanalyzed as "the" plus "tother".
That is, "þæt oþer" (or "that other" in more modernized spelling) was just the normal, grammatically correct way to say "the other" in Old English.
As Old English evolved into Middle English, though, the case system started to collapse, and all the different article forms merged into "the".
As Old English evolved into Middle English, though, the case system started to collapse, and all the different article forms merged into "the".
January 8, 2026 at 10:05 PM
That is, "þæt oþer" (or "that other" in more modernized spelling) was just the normal, grammatically correct way to say "the other" in Old English.
As Old English evolved into Middle English, though, the case system started to collapse, and all the different article forms merged into "the".
As Old English evolved into Middle English, though, the case system started to collapse, and all the different article forms merged into "the".
It's just like having to know when to use "le" or "la" in French "el" or "la" in Spanish today. In Old English, the ancestor of "other", "oþer", was neuter when it was used as an indefinite pronoun, and the neuter form of the article (at least for nominative and accusative case) was "þæt".
January 8, 2026 at 10:01 PM
It's just like having to know when to use "le" or "la" in French "el" or "la" in Spanish today. In Old English, the ancestor of "other", "oþer", was neuter when it was used as an indefinite pronoun, and the neuter form of the article (at least for nominative and accusative case) was "þæt".
So where's the extra "t" come from? Why was it ever "thet other" instead of just "the other"?
Well, in Old English, nouns and pronouns had one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and you had to use the right demonstrative or adjective forms with them.
Well, in Old English, nouns and pronouns had one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and you had to use the right demonstrative or adjective forms with them.
January 8, 2026 at 9:54 PM
So where's the extra "t" come from? Why was it ever "thet other" instead of just "the other"?
Well, in Old English, nouns and pronouns had one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and you had to use the right demonstrative or adjective forms with them.
Well, in Old English, nouns and pronouns had one of three genders (masculine, feminine, or neuter), and you had to use the right demonstrative or adjective forms with them.
When I first heard it, I assumed that it was a contraction of "the other" (though the change from /ð/ to /t/ would be hard to explain). But it's not—it arose from the Middle English "thet other", which means, well, 'the other'. Over time, "thet other" was reanalyzed as "the tother".
January 8, 2026 at 9:52 PM
When I first heard it, I assumed that it was a contraction of "the other" (though the change from /ð/ to /t/ would be hard to explain). But it's not—it arose from the Middle English "thet other", which means, well, 'the other'. Over time, "thet other" was reanalyzed as "the tother".
The author kept saying things like "But I just searched for [search term] and it came up!" as if the fact that it was visible on the internet meant that it was public domain. I can't remember if our director finally got it through his head that someone owned that image or if the author just gave up.
January 8, 2026 at 6:16 PM
The author kept saying things like "But I just searched for [search term] and it came up!" as if the fact that it was visible on the internet meant that it was public domain. I can't remember if our director finally got it through his head that someone owned that image or if the author just gave up.
I once heard one of our authors (a university professor) go back and forth with our director for several minutes about whether he needed permission to use an image that he found by doing a Google image search.
January 8, 2026 at 6:14 PM
I once heard one of our authors (a university professor) go back and forth with our director for several minutes about whether he needed permission to use an image that he found by doing a Google image search.
The Party told you that all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
January 8, 2026 at 12:08 AM
The Party told you that all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Is that a tiny can, or are your hands friggin' gigantic?
January 7, 2026 at 5:05 PM
Is that a tiny can, or are your hands friggin' gigantic?