Shuja, a reader of this blog and the editor of a student-run publication, asks what unique methods and safeguards NGM has to ensure its excellent quality.

I don’t think we have any methods unique to the Geographic. Rather, we do what serious editors everywhere do: We read, read, and read. Sometimes the same copy editor reads all proofs of the same story. Other times copy editors switch off on reading proofs. In the final stages, our articles go through a proofreader. And throughout the process many other eyes—among them the editor in chief, the managing editor, the text editor and researcher for each article—read and reread what is to be published. That’s why it’s almost inexplicable when something slips past all these keen eyes.

In addition to reading and rereading, we also count on our knowledge and experience. We care about proper word usage, and we like to debate correct grammar and punctuation and puzzle out strange constructions (though, I have to admit, none of us is terribly skilled any more at diagramming sentences).

Sometimes, despite our knowledge, the brain just shorts out and misses something that it should know. Just today, a copy editor corrected a sentence that two others of us had read right over: She changed “One out of four Chinese are migrants” to “One out of four Chinese is a migrant.” One can argue that the meaning of this construction implies more than a single person and therefore a plural verb is justified (“notational agreement” is the term used in Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage), but our normal style at National Geographic is to follow the construction of the sentence and use a singular verb with the subject one.

How do we stay together, maintaining consistency with so many staff commenting on copy? Perhaps our most important tool is the National Geographic Style Manual, an in-house guide to editorial style now available to the public electronically. A committee of editors from throughout the National Geographic Society—representing print, television, and electronic media—meets monthly to discuss issues and keep the manual up-to-date, which enables us to maintain consistency among all our many publications and products.

On the NGM staff we have a Copydesk Director, whose responsibility is to ensure uniformity throughout the magazine. This position was established last year—taking the copy editing function out of the research division where it had resided for eons—committing the magazine to an even more intensive scrutiny before it’s sent to the printer. And speaking of the printer, there have been times when someone at the printing plant has spotted a typo.

So, you see, Shuja, it takes a whole editorial village to reach our standards. When on rare occasions we falter, our loyal readers are quick to let us know. Their high expectations encourage us to work harder. Good luck to you in your striving to print an “impeccable issue, devoid of mistakes.”

Christine’s comment about her dog-eared, patched-up, much loved American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, made me stop and survey my shelves for those books that show the same long use and emotional attachment.

One is the 1977 Atheneum paperback edition of The Careful Writer, by Theodore Bernstein, which, at latest count, has separated into eight sections. Although I don’t consult it as much as I once did, I continue to be grateful for the reasonable and insightful advice it offers, from the snappy entries advising on proper prepositions (“Mediate—takes preposition on or upon”) to nearly five pages dealing with commas: “The tendency these days is to use a minimum of commas. And if a writer feels the need to use a multitude of commas in a sentence, it is likely that the sentence is confused and requires recasting.” No matter how esoteric the entry, the author’s wit and love of clear writing show through.

My 1980 hardback edition of Roy H. Copperud’s American Usage and Style, the Consensus, also fell apart some years ago from frequent use in my early days of copyediting. Fortunately a decade or so ago a generous colleague took pity on me and gave me her copy, which I’m happy to say is still intact. This is a book I wish were reedited and updated to take into account changing values since it first appeared. I find it immeasurably useful to see how far apart the opinion of experts can be and am always grateful to be validated in some, though not all, of my views. I wonder, if Copperud were writing today, would he still warn against the use of visionary to mean farsighted, prophetic, or imaginative?

The second edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary is within reach of my desk, though it remains unopened for days on end. Still, its presence reassures, even though I now refer more frequently to the third edition.

I too love the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and recently replaced my tattered copy with the fourth edition, which at the moment is too clean and lies too squarely on my bookshelf. It hasn’t yet acquired those comfortable qualities of a longtime friend who’s been by your side through ups and downs. But give it time. Even though much of my work now is done on the computer, nothing can replace the tactile satisfaction of leisurely leafing through a dictionary. You never know what you will discover. Just last week I learned that the original spelling of persnickety was pernickety.   

For as long as I’ve been associated with National Geographic, our standard dictionary reference has been Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. The reason for this choice is lost in history, but I suspect it’s because it has always been readily available and because 50 years ago there were fewer choices than today. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which I consider a fine, scholarly publication, did not appear until 1969; Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary even more recently. Another possible reason is that until the arrival of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary in 1961 and its rejection by linguistic purists as way too permissive, Webster’s dictionaries were highly regarded in professional circles.

A member of my style committee here at NGS has been reading Robert Hartwell Fiske’s Dictionary of Disagreeable English, in which he ranks six dictionaries on how each handles 25 words or phrases. Fiske, who edits Vocabula Review, an online magazine that “strives to combat the degradation of our language,” concludes that Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate is the most descriptive—in other words the most permissive—and therefore the worst of the six.

My fellow editor wonders why the Geographic continues to use Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate as our standard reference. Good question. One I plan to ask my entire committee as well as other editors and writers. Should we stay with a dictionary that merely describes how the English language is used by the masses today, or should we switch to a dictionary that attempts to prevent the degradation of our language by prescribing correct usage?

In the meantime, though, I am relieved to point out that for at least half the examples used by Fiske in his rankings, I would make an exception to Merriam-Webster’s and stick with the more formal, prescribed usage over the popular nonstandard form. I would insist on accidentally and not accidently, all right and not alright, home in and not hone in, and would distinguish between the meanings of flaunt and flout, enormity and enormousness, reticent and reluctant.

What do you readers think?

Why do publications such as National Geographic have an editorial style, strive for consistency, and even produce manuals to explain that style?

On occasion, writers have challenged my endorsement of editorial consistency by quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Actually, according to Stevenson’s Home Book of Quotations, the quotation says "foolish consistency." What does that mean? Is it foolish today to expect a publication to maintain a certain consistency in spelling, in punctuation, in capitalization?

Rules and regulations are necessary in any civilized undertaking, and making a publication conform to certain uniform standards produces clear writing, which, in turn, leads to easy comprehension by the reader. Even if the reader has no intricate knowledge of the rules and reasons for writing something a certain way, he’s helped by someone else’s knowledge and care with words.

So, we copyeditors do our job primarily to help the reader. I suspect, though, that deep down it’s also because we, more than many people, like order and precision, and find great satisfaction in the subtlest of corrections. Our love of poring over manuscripts—putting in commas, taking out commas, debating hyphens, frowning on the misuse of “decimate” and “compromise”—might even stem in part from our wanting to show how knowledgeable we are about grammar, spelling, punctuation. (This could well be akin to the gotcha tone I detect in some of the letters readers write when they spot what they believe is a grammatical error.)

The National Geographic Style Manual has existed since the early 1960s, when it was a typewritten guide (with several carbon copies) for a handful of editors. Within a few years it became a typeset edition—loose-leaf pages in a yellow binder. Soon there was a style committee of magazine staff who met regularly to update the manual and revisions were published every few years. The style committee now comprises editors from all areas of the Society—television, books, other magazines, new media, marketing, school publishing—and the manual is no longer printed but is found online where it can be constantly updated.

Several years ago we made the manual available, on our website, to the public. You can find it at the bottom right corner of National Geographic magazine’s home page or by using this URL in your browser: stylemanual.ngs.org. In the manual you’ll find the editorial style rules used in most National Geographic publications.

Speaking about rules, we should have a few for this blog, not that I can imagine grammarians ever becoming rude or obnoxious. It’s all right to be passionate, but always be polite; keep your language clean; focus (this is a column about grammar and word usage); don’t plagiarize; don’t get personal or nasty. I will respond to some, but certainly not all, comments. Thanks for the comments so far. Keep them coming!

As a longtime researcher and copyeditor for National Geographic, I’m someone who still enjoys thumbing through the tissue pages of Webster’s print dictionaries, and now here I am blogging, about grammar and punctuation and word usage. I wonder, do readers of blogs even care about commas, subject/verb agreement, and the difference between if and whether? Conversely, do those self-described grammar sticklers who write to complain about something they read in the printed pages of National Geographic ever venture onto the Web? (I suspect that one of my regular correspondents does not, because when I respond to him I need to dig out letterhead stationery from the far reaches of my desk drawer.)

As you may be able to tell from my bio, I haven't entered a formal grammar class in decades. I barely know what's being taught in schools these days. So I want to hear from you: How do you learn about grammar? Do you even care about punctuation and spelling? How do you determine what's correct? Are there rules you learned in school that you'd like to throw away? Do you wonder about rules you might never have learned?

I long ago discarded the rule about not starting sentences with and or but. I happily split infinitives (to boldly go) and end sentences with prepositions (What’s it made of?). At the moment I'm about to give in and use while for whereas, and since for because. On the other hand I'm standing firm on the distinction between which and that, and insist on adding also in not only . . . but also constructions.

Language morphs. Words evolve or become extinct. Grammar rules become forgotten or rewritten. I’m for a reasonable approach. A little change is good, but let’s not abandon all control. The most important thing is effective communication and clearly conveyed information.