We are decent copy editors at best, and on most occasions terrible. (I think that sentence fails a number of rules.) Late-night editing and early-morning formatting are no excuses for mistakes, but it’s often been the readers’ eyes who catch our undotted i’s or uncrossed t’s before we do.

(And apologies if you find the title of this letter offensive or demeaning to women, but if you’ve seen His Girl Friday then you know it’s Rosalind Russell who’s the wiz in the gang.)

Therefore it’s with enormous pleasure and gratitude that I introduce Kate Schlegel to the TMN staff as our new copy editor. She is supreme. A copy editor for the Wall Street Journal Online by day, she will be slowly introducing a higher standard of publishing around these offices, better sentences for you and fewer headaches for us. Like Andrew and me, Kate’s a Brooklyn resident and also a hardcore runner. She’s also the first copy editor I’ve met who doesn’t wear glasses.

She will probably convince us to give up our single-quotes, and force us to learn about intransitive verbs. Maybe em dashes too.

So welcome Kate. And, publicly, thanks. (Note: this letter was not edited by Kate Schlegel, unfortunately.)

Yours,
Rosecrans