Hyphens, Apostrophes, Trump: A Conversation With a Copy Editor for a Confused Nation – By Kenzie Bryant (Vanity Fair) / Sept 27 2019
The copy community speaks out.
Copy editors are the unsung heroes of writing. They keep the world’s wordsmiths from looking like big dum-dums every day, and for that, everyone—writers, readers, this whole content community—should be grateful. And so, when I saw that the president tweeted the following about punctuation this morning, I, a dum-dum, wanted answers from the experts.
I asked a source close to the copy desk at Vanity Fair whether she could explain what’s happening here. She agreed, and so we DM’d on Slack. I think you’ll agree the interview was pretty illuminating.
Kenzie Bryant: In your capacity as a copy editor, do you notice anything about this tweet?
Copy Editor: So many things! Seems like he’s calling an apostrophe a hyphen.
K.B.: Remind me what an apostrophe is again?
C.E. ’
K.B.: Thank you. How does it function in a sentence?
C.E. It has a few uses, mainly as a contraction in place of a letter or letters (can’t; singin’; ol’), or to mark a possessive (Kenzie’s story; Grace’s desk).
K.B.: Even if he managed to identify the apostrophe as an apostrophe, would he be using it correctly here?
C.E. I’m not clear how he was trying to use it here! I think he misspelled “little,” but that’s what he’s pushing back on? And with or without the apostrophe, it is not a word I recognize.
K.B.: Just so we define all of our terms: What is a hyphen?
C.E. A hyphen is usually used to connect two words or ideas to indicate that they should be understood together, or in relation to each other.
K.B.: In the copyediting community, is it considered worse to use a hyphen incorrectly or an apostrophe incorrectly or to call an apostrophe a hyphen?
C.E. I’m going to go with calling an apostrophe a hyphen. There is a lot of debate around hyphen usage in the grammar-nerd world (see: here), but I don’t think it seems nearly as egregious as calling one form of punctuation by another’s name.
K.B.: I assume your copy editor group texts were going buck this morning, right?
C.E. The Slacks were flying!!
K.B.: You regularly save writers’ butts from looking stupid on the internet. What do you think the president could gain from hiring a copy editor, even if just for Twitter?
C.E. I pray for the poor soul who would ever take on such a job. But he would certainly lower the risk of future covfefe fiascos, and his unconventional approach to capitalization would likely change.
K.B.: Last question. In tweeting that an incorrectly used apostrophe is actually a hyphen, could the president have been trying to prove that he’s no fucking nerd?
C.E. I don’t think this president was ever at risk of being considered someone who is overly fond—or even all that conscious—of the written word.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/09/donald-trump-tweet-hyphen-apostrophe-liddle
