editorial freedom

I'm editing Issue 12 of the BPL magazine right now. Seems like I plan my trips to visit in-laws on days that conflict with major deadlines, which is so fun, as I scramble to prep everything before I leave.

Sometimes I get great articles that require little to no actual copy-editing (though proof-reading is another matter), and other times, I wonder who gave an author permission to set pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be. Of course, any more, the permissive one was ME.

I keep a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style handy for these times. It's a thick reference book with all the information an editor (or writer) may ever need, and in it, I found this liberating quote from Charles Allen Lloyd from 1938:

Next to the groundless notion that it is incorrect to end an English sentence with a preposition, perhaps the most wide-spread of the many false beliefs about the use of our language is the equally groundless notion that it is incorrect to begin one with 'but' or 'and.' As in the case of the superstition about the prepositional ending, no textbook supports it, but apparently about half of our teachers of English go out of their way to handicap their pupils by inculcating it. One cannot help wondering whether those who teach such a monstrous doctrine ever read any English themselves.

YES! Trust me, this is a big deal. For me (and maybe Janelle?). For you? Probably not so much.