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Wistar

NYT's "Copy Edit This" quizzes are quite good.

https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=%22copy%2Bedit%2Bthis%2...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/11/insider/copy-...

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Those are fun. Just got through the first one with 17 total tries (most of which were on the 8th question).

Some of them are dubious, though, IMO. For example:

> The total amount available to |disperse| will be $150 million annually.

I guess in a journalism context more people are talking about disbursing than dispersing, but how am I supposed to know that? For all I know this sentence comes from an article about wanting to "scatter" that money.

EDIT: another example from the second quiz:

> Republicans will not like many of these proposals, but they have been |fulsome| in their praise of Mr. Trump since his election. Speaker Paul D. Ryan, for instance, has repeatedly said that he expects Mr. Trump to work with Republicans on their agenda of rolling back the Affordable Care Act and making large-scale changes to the tax code and entitlements.

The explanation for why "fulsome" is wrong here was that "this word means not just “full” or “abundant” but “offensively excessive.”". How am I supposed to know "offensively excessive" wasn't the intended meaning here? I ended up picking it simply because it came across as a bit too pretentious, but not before I picked "instance" for the same reason ("for instance" instead of "for example" bugs me a bit).

"For example" and "for instance" are often used interchangeably, but do have some nuance between them. "For example" is broader, indicating a description of a class or category being described. "For instance" is narrower in scope, referring to a specific instance in the large class described by the example. Additionally, "for example" would be appropriate to use when creating a hypothetical, but "for instance" should always refer to something real - a concrete member of a class or category or an exemplary event which has occurred.

>>fulsome

Agree. I was tripped by that too. Here is an example from Merriam-Webster[1]:

"the passengers were fulsome in praise of the plane's crew"

The usage here seems to be in a similar context.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fulsome

> How am I supposed to know "offensively excessive" wasn't the intended meaning here?

I'm guessing if it were the intended meaning, "but" would be incorrect in "Republicans will not like many of these proposals, but they have been fulsome in their praise of Mr. Trump since his election"

I mean, if it's "offensively excessive" from the writer's point of view, then I feel like it'd make sense even with the "but"; that's indeed how I took the sentence to mean.

That is a fun set of examples, and most of the answers are right on. But not this one:

> 12. Led Zeppelin did not steal the opening riff of its rock anthem “Stairway to Heaven,” a federal jury ruled here, giving the band a victory in a copyright case in which millions of dollars were at stake.

> O.K., this may be a fine point. But since what was at stake was the total amount, rather than the individual dollars or even the individual millions, I would make it “was at stake.”

Millions were at stake. Dollars were at stake.

Just putting the two together doesn't magically make it singular. No one would ever say "millions of dollars was at stake."

Copyediting should reflect how people actually speak and write.

But that’s exactly how I would say it: “millions of dollars was at stake.” To me, what you propose seems like a mistake someone just learning English would make.

Give it a specific sum: you wouldn’t say “two million dollars were at stake,” you would say “two million dollars was at stake”. I admit it’s pretty weird, but you also say “two million dollars is a lot of money,” not “two million dollars are a lot of money.”

Me, too, "[M]illions of dollars was at stake," is exactly how I would state that.

IIRC this may be a difference between British English and American English... Whereas a Briton might say “Led Zeppelin were on stage”, referring to the multiple band members, an American would say “Led Zeppelin was on stage”, referring to the band as the single entity. I can’t remember where I read about this though.

You’re correct! They take it pretty far: for instance companies are collective nouns, so they would say “Apple are releasing the new iPhone.” In not sure where it stops, but I’m vaguely suspicious that countries are singular nouns.

> Copyediting should reflect how people actually speak and write.

Why? Genuine question. Written language is always different than spoken language, and this is not unique to English. People make mistakes all the time when speaking, particularly native speakers. [0]

Upon initial reading, I would say one -could- say "was" or "were". But when I read it aloud, I found "was" was more natural.

In most situations this isn't that big of a deal, but we are talking about copy editors here...

> how people actually speak and write.

When I grew up religiously reading books, I wrote and spoke a lot more book-like than I do now. Which version of me is "how people actually speak and write"?

Is Standard American English "how people actually speak and write"? Or is it fine to use varieties of English like Appalachian English or African-American Vernacular English?

Who decides the above? English doesn't have a language council like Korean or French. There is no all-authoritative entity to ask.

[0]: /r/boneappletea is both humorous and infuriating for examples of this. https://www.reddit.com/r/BoneAppleTea/comments/doscha/starch...

Thank you and the others who replied. Obviously I was wrong to say no one would ever use "was" here. Live and learn! :-)

Thanks for sharing those links, now I am addicted :-)

This from the second quiz bothers me:

>>On the witness stand, the defendants said they had been duped by Mr. Wildstein, a self-confessed liar and political trickster, into believing that the closings were part of a legitimate traffic study.

"self-confessed liar" is a phrase present even in dictionaries - as example usage, no less. I have not seen many instances where it is substituted with "confessed liar".

Although "self-confessed liar" is plainly redundant, IMO.

That was really fun. I got 1 of 15 lol.

This literally begs the question if people still can write correctly.

I'm not sure if you are being ironic, but this is actually a common misuse of the phrase "begging the question":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Noting of course that it's probably more common in the "incorrect" form!

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