Phew! It’s been a busy month (something I will never complain about) and there’s hardly been a day when I’ve not had to juggle competing client priorities or pivot more times than, er, well, a pivoty thing in a ‘who can pivot the most’ competition. Thank goodness for all the clever tools that us editors now have at our disposal – working smarter is now a way of life. But tools have their limits – a point neatly demonstrated in Alice Lehtinen’s blog as she road-tested Co-Pilot’s ability to write concisely in academic English, versus her own professional editing skills (https://ease.org.uk/2025/04/the-curious-case-of-co-pilot-and-editing/). It will not surprise you to know that the results were somewhat mixed – nuances are best left to human judgement!
I pride myself in being flexible – not just about my time and expertise, but also about embracing the evolution of the English language. There are some things, however, that will always make me reach for the red pen, and I have an ally in June Casagrande, whose regular blog on points of grammar always make me smile: her piece on common mispronunciations is a fact-packed gem (https://www.grammarunderground.com/that-awful-pronunciation-of-nuclear.html).
The last word in copyediting wisdom belongs to the inimitable John McIntyre, who sums up what it is about my role that brings value, credibility and integrity to the material that I work on, which people read without a moment’s thought to its journey, day in, day out (https://johnemcintyre.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-copy-editors-code.html).
And I’m never, ever, too busy to learn from the best.