Because I’ve been researching and copyediting for several decades, I sometimes get cocky and think I know everything there is to know about my craft and how to copyedit, and then POW, I discover something basic that I never imagined, and I’m amazed and humbled.

My most recent POW moment came as a result of a discussion I had with another editor on the magazine’s staff, who asked why Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary  breaks pe-tro-leum one way and pet-ro-chem-i-cal another, especially if in the pronunciation guide both words break after pe.

I had not a clue how to answer this question, and so sent an email off to the nice folk at Merriam-Webster’s Language Research Service. Within a few hours I received the thorough and polite explanation that follows.

“Thank you very much for writing to Merriam-Webster. The raised dots that appear in boldface entry words indicate possible end-of-line divisions, rather than syllable breaks. When we decide where to put these division dots, we take into account such things as morphology in addition to pronunciation. Syllable breaks are only shown within pronunciations. You’ll notice that the break between the first two syllables in ‘petroleum,’ ‘petrodollar,’ and ‘petrochemical’ is the same, even though the division dots appear in different places:

                                                pe• tro• leum \pə-'trō-lē-əm\
                                                pet• ro• chem• i• cal \'pe-trō-'ke-mi-kəl\
                                                pet• ro• dol• lar  \'pe-trō-'dä-lər\

With end-of-line divisions in general, there are acceptable alternatives, but we only show one set of possible divisions for each entry because we don’t have enough room to list them all. You can find more information about end-of-line divisions at http://merriam-webster.com/help/dictnotes/entries.htm (you’ll have to scroll down to get to the relevant section, which is about half-way down the page). You can find more information about syllable breaks in pronunciations in the section on hyphens at http://merriam-webster.com/help/pronguide.htm.”

As grateful as I am for this explanation, it still leaves unanswered my colleague’s question about which breaks to follow. Morphology? What does that mean? My fellow editor would deviate from Webster’s and break all three words after the pe, as they are pronounced.

If there are copyeditors reading this blog, I’d be interested to know what your guidelines are.

As to the word petrochemical in our manuscript, we’re going to recast the sentence or change the spacing to avoid breaking the word.

In my previous blog about the subjunctive, I spoke about those situations in which the writer or speaker must decide whether a statement is an outright presentation of fact (requiring the indicative mood) or a hypothetical statement or one contrary to fact (requiring subjunctive). And, for you die-hard grammarians, I promised a future column about this esoteric subject.

So, here it is.

Other uses for the subjunctive occur in set, idiomatic expressions and with verbs of wishing and demanding. Fortunately these two categories usually take little analysis and are spoken correctly with no thought at all by native speakers.

Idioms displaying the subjunctive include “God forbid,” “heaven help him,” “wish she were here,” “lest I be considered,” “be that as it may.” The verb form in these phrases is subjunctive, formed by using the base word from the infinitive form of the verb. So, for the verb to be, the present subjunctive is be, in contrast to the indicative forms am, are, and is. (The past tense subjunctive for the verb to be is were, although it is past tense not in a temporal sense, but only a modal sense. See how complex this subject can be.)  In regular verbs the subjunctive can be discerned only in the third person singular because the normal “s” ending is dropped: God forbid (subjunctive); God forbids (indicative).

Wishes and demands also take the subjunctive, although the indicative seems to be gaining favor with wishes. “I wish I were more flexible on the dance floor [subjunctive]”; “I wish I was more flexible on the dance floor [indicative].” “The teacher demanded that Lynn close her book immediately and insisted she do the rest of the drawing from memory [both verbs are subjunctive].”

Enough of this tiring explanation. Most of you will use the subjunctive correctly without even thinking. For those debatable instances in which the most formal of writers would instinctively use the subjunctive and less formal writers would just as instinctively opt for a more conversational indicative, you will have good company no matter which style you follow.

When I returned to the office the day after Christmas, I had messages from two readers about perceived errors in the January issue. As director of editorial research and the magazine’s style maven, I’ve dealt with such letters for many years and by-and-large enjoy this chance to communicate with our readers. They care as much as we do about the words in National Geographic, and we should listen to their concerns as well as to share with them how we think. 

Of course it’s easier to answer letters from gentle, polite, thoughtful readers than it is the blasts we occasionally get from what another wordsmith calls the gotcha gang. My Christmas communications represented one of each.

The first was a polite voice mail message left in the Editor’s office a few days before Christmas by a mountain climber, who pointed out that we had the wrong elevation for Annapurna on page 117 of the Polish climbing story in the January issue. The correct figure is 26,502 feet, not 29,502. The gentle reader was, unfortunately, right. A researcher on our staff transposed the 6 to a 9 when inserting the elevation into the text, and none of the rest of us reading proofs noticed that we had consequently made Annapurna higher than Everest. Such a mistake is particularly embarrassing for a geographic publication that prides itself on a rigorous research process.

The second reader was less temperate in tone, calling us to task for a typo on page 142—“you replaced ‘sure’ with ‘sore’ ”—and concluding with, “Seeing such a stupid mistake in an otherwise wonderful publication is extremely disconcerting.” Needless to say, I was also disconcerted until I found the sentence in question and assured myself that it was correct as written, though I could see why the reader had misread it: “He was not sore [sure] the owner didn’t want to sell, because it might have been a family home.” This reader was gracious enough to write back to apologize.

Although we are only human and will sometimes print factual or grammatical errors, we set extremely high standards for ourselves and have many safeguards in place to prevent sloppy or inaccurate writing. Our readers too have high expectations for our magazine, and we try hard not to disappoint them or ourselves. On those rare occasions when we are wrong, we admit it, look for ways to prevent such a mistake from happening again, and move on.

As one of my bosses said after I had let a misspelling slip into print early in my career, we can at least take solace in the fact that no one was harmed by the error.