“I had cancer 12 years ago, and this is exactly like cancer," a Wayne County treasury official said of Detroit's blighted homes. "If you don’t get it all, it’s going to come back.”
A Mystery Bidder Offers $3 Million to Buy and Clean Up 6,000 of Detroit's Worst Homes
No one was expected to bid on the blighted lots because the cost of cleaning them up, as required, means there's no way to turn a profit
BUSINESSWEEK.COM|由 KAREN WEISE 上傳
Ancient Viking runes decoded. This is what one of them says: 'these runes are written by the most skilled rune writer west of the sea' and also 'kiss me' - via Guardian culture
Runologist cracks the mysterious jötunvillur code – and discovers medieval 'text messages'
A unique elliptical loop of trivia
Editorial Observer
I went to the Newseum, a shiny new building in Washington that news companies and foundations have erected as a shrine to their industry. Since it’s my industry, too, I thought a museum, where sacred relics and texts have been placed safely in the equivalent of a big glass jar, might make me hopeful about the future.
“Where’s the section on copy editing?” I asked the guy at the entrance.
He wasn’t sure. “Try Internet, TV and Radio, on the third floor.”
“For copy editing? Newspaper copy editing?”
He checked with a colleague. “News History, on five,” she said.
Ouch. Copy editors are my favorite people in the news business, and many I know are still alive and doing what they do. As it happened, I couldn’t find anything about them on the fifth or any other floor. A call later confirmed that the museum has essentially nothing about how newspapers are made today, and thus nothing about the lowly yet exalted copy editor.
I was one for a long time, and I know that obscurity and unpopularity are part of the job. Copy editors work late hours and can get testy. They never sign their work.
As for what they do, here’s the short version: After news happens in the chaos and clutter of the real world, it travels through a reporter’s mind, a photographer’s eye, a notebook and camera lens, into computer files, then through multiple layers of editing. Copy editors handle the final transition to an ink-on-paper object. On the news-factory floor, they do the refining and packaging. They trim words, fix grammar, punctuation and style, write headlines and captions.
But they also do a lot more. Copy editors are the last set of eyes before yours. They are more powerful than proofreaders. They untangle twisted prose. They are surgeons, removing growths of error and irrelevance; they are minimalist chefs, straining fat. Their goal is to make sure that the day’s work of a newspaper staff becomes an object of lasting beauty and excellence once it hits the presses.
Yeah. Presses. It has probably already struck you how irrelevant many of these skills may seem in the endlessly shifting, eternal glow of the Web.
The copy editor’s job, to the extent possible under deadline, is to slow down, think things through, do the math and ask the irritating question. His or her main creative outlet, writing clever headlines, is problematic online, because allusive wordplay doesn’t necessarily generate Google hits. And Google makes everyone an expert, so the aging copy editor’s trivia-packed brain and synonym collection seem not to count for as much anymore.
The job hasn’t disappeared yet, but it is swiftly evolving, away from an emphasis on style and consistency, from making a physical object perfect the first time. The path to excellence is now through speed, agility and creativity in using multiple expressive outlets for information in all its shapes and sounds.
As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise. They have been forced to shrink or eliminate the multiply redundant levels of editing that distinguish their kind of journalism from what you find on TV, radio and much of the Web. Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced.
Webby doesn’t necessarily mean sloppy, of course, and online news operations will shine with all the brilliance that the journalists who create them can bring. But in that world of the perpetual present tense — post it now, fix it later, update constantly — old-time, persnickety editing may be a luxury in which only a few large news operations will indulge. It will be an artisanal product, like monastery honey and wooden yachts.
It would be nice, at least, to thank the copy editors on the way out. But after visiting the Newseum, I know what I have suspected for a few years: if newspaper copy editors vanish from the earth, no one is going to notice.
The verb has one meaning:
Meaning #1: edit and correct (written or printed material)
Synonyms: copyread, subedit
convene Show phonetics
verb [I or T] FORMAL
to arrange (a group of people for) a meeting, or to meet for a meeting:
The Prime Minister convened (a meeting of) his ministers to discuss the matter.
The council will be convening on the morning of the 25th.
or elliptical (-tĭ-kəl)
adj.
IN BRIEF: Shaped like an oval. Also: Of, relating to, or marked by three periods in a row.
Tim's English teacher was impressed by his skillful use of elliptical marks to shorten the lengthy quotation.
| 1. | on Page 20: |
| "... Treacherous Bend in the Rainbow."' Periods convene to create ellipses, implying missing words, ..." |
A unique elliptical loop of trivia
In a Changing World of News, an Elegy for Copy Editors
I went to the Newseum, a shiny new building in Washington that news companies and foundations have erected as a shrine to their industry. Since it’s my industry, too, I thought a museum, where sacred relics and texts have been placed safely in the equivalent of a big glass jar, might make me hopeful about the future.
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Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.“Where’s the section on copy editing?” I asked the guy at the entrance.
He wasn’t sure. “Try Internet, TV and Radio, on the third floor.”
“For copy editing? Newspaper copy editing?”
He checked with a colleague. “News History, on five,” she said.
Ouch. Copy editors are my favorite people in the news business, and many I know are still alive and doing what they do. As it happened, I couldn’t find anything about them on the fifth or any other floor. A call later confirmed that the museum has essentially nothing about how newspapers are made today, and thus nothing about the lowly yet exalted copy editor.
I was one for a long time, and I know that obscurity and unpopularity are part of the job. Copy editors work late hours and can get testy. They never sign their work.
As for what they do, here’s the short version: After news happens in the chaos and clutter of the real world, it travels through a reporter’s mind, a photographer’s eye, a notebook and camera lens, into computer files, then through multiple layers of editing. Copy editors handle the final transition to an ink-on-paper object. On the news-factory floor, they do the refining and packaging. They trim words, fix grammar, punctuation and style, write headlines and captions.
But they also do a lot more. Copy editors are the last set of eyes before yours. They are more powerful than proofreaders. They untangle twisted prose. They are surgeons, removing growths of error and irrelevance; they are minimalist chefs, straining fat. Their goal is to make sure that the day’s work of a newspaper staff becomes an object of lasting beauty and excellence once it hits the presses.
Yeah. Presses. It has probably already struck you how irrelevant many of these skills may seem in the endlessly shifting, eternal glow of the Web.
The copy editor’s job, to the extent possible under deadline, is to slow down, think things through, do the math and ask the irritating question. His or her main creative outlet, writing clever headlines, is problematic online, because allusive wordplay doesn’t necessarily generate Google hits. And Google makes everyone an expert, so the aging copy editor’s trivia-packed brain and synonym collection seem not to count for as much anymore.
The job hasn’t disappeared yet, but it is swiftly evolving, away from an emphasis on style and consistency, from making a physical object perfect the first time. The path to excellence is now through speed, agility and creativity in using multiple expressive outlets for information in all its shapes and sounds.
As newspapers lose money and readers, they have been shedding great swaths of expensive expertise. They have been forced to shrink or eliminate the multiply redundant levels of editing that distinguish their kind of journalism from what you find on TV, radio and much of the Web. Copy editors are being bought out or forced out; they are dying and not being replaced.
Webby doesn’t necessarily mean sloppy, of course, and online news operations will shine with all the brilliance that the journalists who create them can bring. But in that world of the perpetual present tense — post it now, fix it later, update constantly — old-time, persnickety editing may be a luxury in which only a few large news operations will indulge. It will be an artisanal product, like monastery honey and wooden yachts.
It would be nice, at least, to thank the copy editors on the way out. But after visiting the Newseum, I know what I have suspected for a few years: if newspaper copy editors vanish from the earth, no one is going to notice.
WordNet: copyedit
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.The verb has one meaning:
Meaning #1: edit and correct (written or printed material)
Synonyms: copyread, subedit
el・e・gy
━━ n. 挽歌(ばんか), 哀歌, 悲歌.
el・e・gi・ac
━━ a., n. 挽歌の, 哀歌［エレジー］（調）の; 悲しい; （pl.） 挽歌形式の詩歌.
el・e・gi・a・cal a.
el・e・gize
━━ v. 哀歌を作る; 哀歌に歌う ((upon)).
el・e・gi・ac ━━ a., n. 挽歌の, 哀歌［エレジー］（調）の; 悲しい; （pl.） 挽歌形式の詩歌.el・e・gi・a・cal a.
el・e・gize ━━ v. 哀歌を作る; 哀歌に歌う ((upon)).copy editor
（新聞社の）原稿整理係.
convene Show phonetics
verb [I or T] FORMAL
to arrange (a group of people for) a meeting, or to meet for a meeting:
The Prime Minister convened (a meeting of) his ministers to discuss the matter.
The council will be convening on the morning of the 25th.
elliptic
(ĭ-lĭp'tĭk) or elliptical (-tĭ-kəl)adj.
- Of, relating to, or having the shape of an ellipse.
- Containing or characterized by ellipsis.
- Of or relating to extreme economy of oral or written expression.
- Marked by deliberate obscurity of style or expression.
[New Latin ellīpticus, from Greek elleiptikos, defective, from elleipsis, a falling short, ellipsis. See ellipsis.]
elliptically el·lip'ti·cal·ly adv.
Word Tutor: elliptical
IN BRIEF: Shaped like an oval. Also: Of, relating to, or marked by three periods in a row.
Tim's English teacher was impressed by his skillful use of elliptical marks to shorten the lengthy quotation.
a. (形容詞 adjective)
- 橢圓的
- 【語】省略的
mystery1
Line breaks: mys|tery
NOUN ( plural mysteries)
1Something that is difficult or impossible to understandor explain:the mysteries of outer spacewhat happened after he left home that day remains a mystery
3.1The practices, skills, or lore peculiar to aparticular trade or activity and regarded asbaffling to those without specialized knowledge:the mysteries of analytical psychology
4chiefly Christian Theology A religious belief based ondivine revelation, especially one regarded as beyondhuman understanding:the mystery of Christ
4.1An incident in the life of Jesus or of a saint as a focus of devotion in the Roman Catholic Church, especially each of those commemorated duringrecitation of successive decades of the rosary:the first Sorrowful Mystery, the Agony in the Garden
Origin
middle english (in the sense 'mystic presence, hidden religious symbolism'): from Old French mistere or Latinmysterium, from Greek mustērion; related to mystic.
initiate
Line breaks: ini¦ti|ate
VERB
Pronunciation: /ɪˈnɪʃɪeɪt/
[ WITH OBJECT]
2.2(initiate someone in/into) Introduce someone to (a particular activity or skill, especially a difficultor obscure one):they were initiated into the mysteries ofmathematics
Pronunciation: /ɪˈnɪʃɪeɪt/
2.2(initiate someone in/into) Introduce someone to (a particular activity or skill, especially a difficultor obscure one):they were initiated into the mysteries ofmathematics
NOUN
Pronunciation: /ɪˈnɪʃɪət/
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Pronunciation: /ɪˈnɪʃɪət/
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Origin
mid 16th century (in sense 2 of the verb): from Latininitiat- 'begun', from the verb initiare, from initium'beginning'.
mid 16th century (in sense 2 of the verb): from Latininitiat- 'begun', from the verb initiare, from initium'beginning'.
rune
Syllabification: rune
Pronunciation: /ro͞on/
noun
Runes
were used by Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons from about the 3rd century.
They were formed mainly by modifying Roman or Greek characters to suit
carving, and were used both in writing and in divination
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