Year in Review: The Best of 2015

The new year is well underway, and we’ve seized the opportunity to look back at how 2015 progressed on the blog. These are some of our favourite posts from the year:

• Wasted Words: A Compulsion to Exaggerate, by Wilf Popoff. Whatever became of understatement?
• In My Opinion, by Susan Glickman. There are a heck of a lot of opinions out there.
• Time, Money and the Freelance Life, by Paul Cipywnyk. “I don’t want to run a business! I just want to write!”
• Should Editors Be Able to Write? by Rosemary Shipton. Should editors also be writers? (At the request of the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors, Rosemary repurposed this article for publication in their newsletter. The new version was selected as their Editors’ Choice for July 2015 and redistributed in Chinese. Another of Rosemary’s 2015 blog articles, “Real E-Books,” mentions a title she edited called Tom Thomson. In January, this book was featured in the National Gallery of Canada magazine.)
• What’s That There, Then? More Cape Breton English, by Frances Peck. Cape Bretoners do love a tricky turn of phrase. (This article’s predecessor, “Notes From Away: Cape Breton English,” is scheduled to be republished in Geist magazine.)
• The Inner Editor: Friends, Readers, Editors, by Virginia Durksen. So what should you do if a friend or family member asks for your opinion of their latest novel?
• It’s Our Turn at the Box Office, by Melva McLean. It’s called Genius, and it stars Colin Firth, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman.
• Linguistics, Frankly: Be on the Ball With the Origins of Phrases, by James Harbeck. People love stories about the origins of words and phrases, but many of them are rather dodgy.
• May I Help You? by Sue Archer. We’re not in this game to win it; we’re in it to satisfy our clients.
• Introverted Networking: Not an Oxymoron, by Frances Peck. Introversion is a terrific quality for editors.

And make sure you didn’t miss any of these other 2015 posts:

• What’s an Editor to Do? — Victoria Neufeldt
• Editors and Their Clients — Rosemary Shipton
• Linguistics, Frankly: Whom Do You Believe? — James Harbeck
• Les liaisons dangereuses : « lalaïsation » et « çalatisme » — Dominique Fortier
• Facts and Fiction: Artful Flight — Susan Glickman
• A Formula for Mathematical Editing — Paul Buckingham
• English Editing in Quebec: Local Realities — Quebec City and Area, and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean — Dwain Richardson
• Review: The Editor’s Companion by Steve Dunham — Sue Archer
• Editing Science: Mechanics and Beyond — Roma Ilnyckyj
• Anémique « académique » — Dominique Fortier
• Myth: Editors Read With Their Eyes —Virginia Durksen
• English Editing in Quebec: False Cognates, Syntax and Interferences — Oh My! — Dwain Richardson
• Editing Goes Global Speaker Profile: Vanessa Ricci-Thode — Tanya Procyshyn
• PerfectIt 3: Quality Software for the Experienced Editor — Adrienne Montgomerie
• EAC Conference Speaker Profile: Brendan O’Brien — Sue Archer
• Un programme d’agrément en français : utile? | Why Do We Need French Certification? — Sandra Gravel
• For the Love of Science — Leonie Pipe
• EAC Conference Speaker Profile: Carol Saller — Sue Archer
• Linguistics, Frankly: Plough Through Enough Dough to Make You Cough or Hiccough — James Harbeck
• Facts and Fiction: Grammar Vampires and True Crime — Ruth E. Thaler-Carter
• Wasted Words: How Language Sometimes Evolves — Wilf Popoff
• We’re All Looking for Style — Victoria Neufeldt
• English Editing in Quebec: What’s Translatable, What’s Not? — Dwain Richardson
• Ah non! pas encore des « coupures »! — Dominique Fortier
• Editing Goes Global: A British Perspective — Sara Peacock
• Linguistics, Frankly: Who Let That Word Into the Dictionary? — James Harbeck
• Interview With Grace Yaginuma, Winner of the Tom Fairley Award — Sue Archer
• The Invisible Vocation in Books — Melva McLean
• Wasted Words: Considering the Case for Verbosity — Wilf Popoff
• English Editing in Quebec: Mind Your Noun Strings, Please! — Dwain Richardson
• Review: Correct English: Reality or Myth? by Geoffrey Marnell — Sue Archer
• Biais, biaiser/biaisé, par le biais de — Dominique Fortier
• Tips for Dealing with Freelance Isolation — Paul Cipywnyk
• Undue Care and Attention — Victoria Neufeldt
• Real E-Books — Rosemary Shipton
• Wasted Words: Don’t Meddle With Shakespeare — Wilf Popoff
• English Editing in Quebec: All About Style — Dwain Richardson
• Prendre une chance ou prendre un risque? — Dominique Fortier
• Gift Ideas for Editors and Other Word Nerds — Tanya Procyshyn
• Is Editing a Deadly Profession? — Paul Cipywnyk

What were some of your favourite posts from the Editors’ Weekly last year? Is there anything you’d like to see more of? Let us know in the comments below!