A World Without Whom

World without Whom

Style guide for the social media generation and those that want to communicate with them.

Based on the Buzzfeed Style Guide (https://www.buzzfeed.com/emmyf/buzzfeed-style-guide?utm_term=.lmm2Yq31eo#.eezqxB8Lnl) and written by the same author, A World Without Whom goes further by explaining the whys behind the rules. Emily also pokes fun at herself and fellow copy editors along the way. She states

there is no such thing as correct style. And sometimes there’s no such thing as correct spelling.

Emily understands that words and grammar have a way of morphing through daily usage especially with today’s social media highway speeding along. However, she has a few rules drawn in the sand. Avoidance of typos, adding hyphens for clarity, using commas where necessary (including this one before the “and”), and fixing danglers (such as this). Emily also suggests using respectful language for sensitive topics like immigration, disease, suicide, race, and gender.

I learned a few things. I resolve to spend extensive time from this point forward trying not to reside in 1965 with its double spaces after sentences. Black is now preferred over African-American. Hispanic only refers to people from the Americas that were colonized by Spain (so not Brazil). However, Latino is everyone with a Latin-American origin. Periods go outside of quotes unless an entire sentence is being quoted. Other readers will also find answers to questions that have been nagging them for years.

Within this review, I used the author’s first name, which I rarely do because I usually use the book title or the generic, tauthor. This book seems like a friend, who is also a copy editor, is telling you what she thinks about spelling and grammar. It doesn’t preach or talk down to the reader at all.  Emily is humorous even when writing about her favorite subject

picking up a dictionary (lol, by which I mean, obviously, checking the internet).

It is a fun little book about words.  If you are interested in words, either as a reader or a writer, this is a great book to pick up.  It is not for everyone so I give it 3 stars.

Thanks to the publisher, Bloomsbury USA, and Netgalley for an advanced review copy.

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