My friend author/editor Ramona Richards has a monthly column over at CFOM** and this month she’s declared she’s a reformed Grammar Nazi. What changed her? She got into publishing. 🙂

That’s right. If you work in publishing you learn very quickly there’s no such thing as a perfect book. Try as we might to make it so—and we do, what with our developmental editing and our copyediting and our proofing—little mistakes slip through. We’re only human.

And while we’re tap-dancing ever so quickly on the hardwood floor of #writetips and language and grammar, those things are changing right beneath our feet. What’s that you say? Yes, language is a living, breathing thing—try using the bee’s knees in conversation and you’ll see what I mean—and grammar and style change right along with it. So you see, a “perfect” book is a moving target.

Richards provides a classic example:

We recently had Amazon pull the “Buy” button from one of our books because of the complaints of one reader about the mistakes in the book. They sent us the list. Of all the “mistakes” on this reader’s list, one was a typo. One was a continuity error. The rest weren’t mistakes at all—just current grammar or the author’s voice in dialogue. So, no, these weren’t going to be changed.

This reader’s grammar was out-of-date, so she was wrong on most of her complaints, but she cost the author sales. And she has a platform to continue to complain.

What’s acceptable in grammar does change. What’s acceptable in story structure and style changes. Richards and I find grammar endlessly fascinating, but we still have to “keep up” somehow. If you’d like to, too, here are some fantastic websites to keep you in the know …

Specifically for Grammar

• Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips
A magazine writer, technical writer, and entrepreneur, Mignon Fogarty has served as a senior editor and producer at a number of health and science web sites. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Searchable.

• The Subversive Copyeditor
Carol Saller is a senior manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press, an editor of The Chicago Manual of Style, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A, and author of several children’s books. Also down-to-earth and fun to read. Searchable.

• Sentence First
Editor Stan Carey is interested in how people communicate. Sentence first is his blog about the English language: its usage, grammar, styles, literature, history, and quirks. I like the way his mind works. Searchable.

• Motivated Grammar: Prescriptivism Must Die!
Gabe Doyle is a computational psycholinguist, which means that he uses computers to model how people think about, understand, and use language. Searchable.

• Copyediting: Language in the Digital Age
Founded in 1990 by a copy editor working at McCall’s magazine, this provides in-depth exploration of the usage and evolution of the English language—from style guide updates to new terms—and what they mean for the gatekeepers of the printed word. Searchable.

• Arrant Pedantry
Jonathan Owen is a linguist, editor, writer, and book designer with a master’s in linguistics. He blogs about editing, usage, prescriptivism and descriptivism, and other language issues. Searchable.

Because They’re Always Interesting

• Sin and Syntax
Billed as an online salon for those who love wicked good prose, author/editor Constance Hale has an abiding curiosity about the English language; read the bio and you’ll understand why. No search, no archives list.

• Draft
The New York Times’s Draft features essays by grammarians, historians, linguists, journalists, novelists, and others on the art of writing—from the comma to the tweet to the novel—and why a well-crafted sentence matters more than ever in the digital age. Searchable (the blog).

• Not One-Off Britishisms
Ben Yagoda teaches English, journalism, and writing at the University of Delaware, and is the author, coauthor, or editor of nine books. He has written about language, writing, and other topics for many publications. NOOB offers British words and phrases that have been widely adopted in the U.S. Indexed and searchable.

• You Don’t Say
The Baltimore Sun’s John McIntyre writes about language, journalism, and arbitrarily chosen topics. Search is for the entire paper.

• Lingua Franca
Billed as a blog about language and writing in academe, this is the blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education, from the School of Communication at American University in Washington DC. Fascinating. Searchable.

• Literal Minded
Neal Whitman says this is linguistic commentary from a guy (with a PhD in linguistics) who takes things too literally. You should read his OAQs (occasionally asked …). Searchable.

And when I’m working, of course, I keep my Chicago Manual of Style handy (and by all means check their online Q&A—it’s often hilarious). We could go on and on with this (Throw Grammar from the Train, anyone?) but this should keep you busy for a while. It certainly does me.

* This movie cracked me up.

** Christian Fiction Online Magazine. It’s new every month and there’s no archive, so it may not be there when you go to look.

Tweet: Language is a living, breathing thing and grammar and style change right along with it.
Tweet: I find grammar & word use endlessly fascinating & have to “keep up” somehow. Here’s how.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”