Jonathon Owen

mcsweeneys.netAI Economics for Dummies“Xavier owns an apartment that he rents out at a loss of $1 billion/month. Seeing this success, he decides to make financial commitments to construct $850 bi...

29 Jan 2025

Hey, check it out! I've joined the cool kids who use their own domain as their handle. You can now find me at @arrantpedantry.com.

Jonathon Owen reposted

Tom Freeman

@tomfreeman.bsky.social

I asked AI for three things that make my daughter special, and it said: "We will add her biological, technological and cultural distinctiveness to our own."

Jonathon Owen reposted

Stan Carey

@stancarey.bsky.social

This was oddly cathartic. AI economics for dummies, by @andrewsingleton.bsky.social at @mcsweeneys.net: www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ai-...

Jonathon Owen reposted

Joey Stanley

@joeystanley.com

That’s quite the relative clause.

The flip side of charging what you want to make as a freelancer is that sometimes you price yourself out of a job.

glassdoor.comSIL International hiring Senior Managing Editor Job in Remote | GlassdoorJob Title Senior Managing Editor Location Global Position Type Volunteer Job Description Volunteer / self supporting sta... See this and similar jobs on Glassdoor

Can someone explain this to me? Who on earth volunteers for a full-time job like this? www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/...

Make a band meaty: Radiohead Cheese

This post is unavailable.

Jonathon Owen reposted

Tom Freeman

@tomfreeman.bsky.social

Ruin a book by adding 800 adverbs to every chapter

Thanks to this post, I discovered that my blog has been infected with malware for at least a few weeks. Fun times! I spent all day yesterday tracking it down, and I think I've finally gotten rid of it. bsky.app/profile/kkat...

ekh@kkatieh.bsky.social@kkatieh.bsky.social

I have two screenshots. It also asked me to change my browser to Opera, and this time as I was leaving the site I got a McAfee ad. Will it let me attach the screenshots to this message? I'll just see if it will!

Sorry to everyone who clicked on any sketchy stuff, and please let me know if you see anything else like that again.

I love how Nvidia is worth several trillion dollars and yet apparently can't pay someone to copyedit this weird driver update status message. "A newer or a same version is present"?

Jonathon Owen reposted

kobayashi ḫamṭu

@mattboot.bsky.social

it's surprisingly hard to explain to a 4yo why something going from hot to warm isn't "getting warmer"

Jonathon Owen reposted

Philip Bump

@pbump.com

a sure sign that something is "highly accepted" is if you have to threaten to impose the power of the state against those who don't accept it

On an entirely different note, now that I have a little more, uh, free time on my hands, I want to try to write more, and I'm considering adding some sort of donation box or paid subscription option. But I'm a little unsure what features paid subscribers would like to see.

Exclusive posts? The ability to request specific topics? Some secret third thing? I'm open to suggestions.

arrantpedantry.comThrowback Thursday: The Case for Singular TheyThe following article was originally published in Copyediting newsletter, October–November 2012 Gender-neutral language can sometimes be a problem for writers and editors, and one of the most seemi…

I'm resurrecting my blog with something a little different: the first article I published for Copyediting newsletter back in the day (the day being October 2012). www.arrantpedantry.com/2026/10/08/t...

View full thread

It's also odd to note that I didn't make any mention of nonbinary "they". I don't remember now if the issue just wasn't on my radar yet or if I felt like I didn't know enough to weigh in on the issue at that time.

But I think it's safe to say that nonbinary "they" was one of the main drivers of acceptance of singular "they" in general. Once individuals start asking to be referred to with "they"/"them" pronouns, it's hard to say that you can't do the same for people of unknown or unspecified gender.

It's a little odd rereading this now that singular "they" has been accepted by the major style guides. At the time, I felt like I was being a little controversial, though singular "they" was definitely picking up momentum, at least among editors and writers.

ivacheung.comRead 'em and reap - Iva Cheung

I believe that list styles in Word were created by Satan himself to torture us. It's the only explanation. #AmEditing

Jonathon Owen reposted

Iva Cheung

@ivacheung.com

OCTOBER CARTOON: ivacheung.com/2026/10/read... #AmEditing

Jonathon Owen reposted

Peter Sokolowski

@petersokolowski.bsky.social

I'm thrilled to announce my upcoming book: BY DEFINITION: The Surprising History of the English Dictionary To be published in February! read.macmillan.com/lp/by-defini...

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025)

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Linda McMahon: "AI is definitely a tool used correctly. I've seen it in action. I have visited the Alpha School in Austin, Texas, where they use AI for the first two hours every single morning. The students have their headsets on, they are watching their computers ... it is incredibly effective"

I will never understand APA style's rules for capitalization in reference lists. Article, chapter, and book titles are sentence case, while journal titles are title case? Make it make sense. #AmEditing

And the fact that they italicize journal volume numbers (but not issue numbers) drives me absolutely batty.

ivacheung.comAPA style - Iva Cheung

As always, @ivacheung.com gets it. ivacheung.com/2018/01/apa-...

Shakespeare did not speak or write in Old English (or "Olde" English)! Old English was spoken from about 500 AD to 1100 AD. Shakespeare wrote in Early Modern English, which was spoken from about the late fifteenth century to the late seventeenth century.

DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.net

Robert Eggers is set to direct a new film adaptation of ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’. The film will feature the actors speaking in Olde English. (Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...)

Editing tip: The form you want is "each other's," not "each others'." Sometimes people get tripped up because it feels plural. But the reflexive form is always "each other" (not "each others"), so the possessive form just adds "'s" like a regular noun. #AmEditing

21 Sept

brb, adding similar-looking but unrelated words to the "Etymology" section of every Wikipedia article I can find

21 Sept

Look, I love etymologies as much as the next nerd, but not every etymological sidetrack is worth sharing.

en.wikipedia.orgMelamine - Wikipedia

21 Sept

I should note that this is from the entry on "melamine" (in case that wasn't obvious). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melamine

18 Sept

I just found out that the cost of COBRA coverage is more than my take-home pay from my erstwhile job. Health insurance in this country is so fucking stupid.

arrantpedantry.comI Am Begging You to Learn How Dictionaries WorkIt’s a phenomenon as predictable as the tides: a dictionary adds new words or definitions, and then people grouse about those changes, either because they don’t like the new words and t…

18 Sept

I guess it's time to dust this post off again. www.arrantpedantry.com/2021/11/08/i...

Jesse Sheidlower@jessesword.com

The NYT tells you why people shouldn't use a #dictionary to find out what words mean. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/m...

nytimes.comSorry, Webster. Most People Don’t Want Internet Slang in the Dictionary.Static definitions of “rizz,” “goblin mode” and “beige flag” don’t easily explain the words’ meanings. But we could use reference formats that do.

A quick glance at the trending topic shows that apparently *everyone* is misreading that as "Meryl Streep cast as Asian."

"Meryl Streep cast as Aslan" (in the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movie) bsky.app/profile/chuk...

ChukG@chukg.bsky.social

What was it really?

Side note: I loved The Chronicles of Narnia when I was in elementary school, but I haven't really cared about them in a long time. But it's really bugging me that they're making The Magician's Nephew first instead of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

So Microsoft Word just doesn't autosave anymore unless you're willing to put everything in OneDrive, huh? #AmEditing

Or is there some setting I'm missing somewhere? (This is Office 2021 for PC.)

👻 SCARE-olina VonKampen 🎃📚 Freelance Editor

I give this idea one MeowMeowBeen.

cyber professional@permadeath.com

the people crave bluesky social credit scores

Jonathon Owen reposted

@carolinavonkampen.com

16 Sept

New words!

Merriam-Webster@merriam-webster.com

New words just dropped. www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/new...

merriam-webster.com1,400 New Words and Definitions Added to Merriam-Webster.comIncluding vibe coding, yacht rock, parasocial, and Mandela Effect

taketest.xyzMultilingual Vocabulary — TakeTestA vocabulary test across 15 European languages. Each screen shows ten words from one language and ten English meanings; pair them up. Click a word, then click its meaning.The ten words are the...

15 Sept

Anyone have any opinions (or better yet, data) on whether the "Open to Work" banner on LinkedIn is helpful? I've heard that some recruiters actually avoid people who have it active.

Jonathon Owen reposted

Gretchen McCulloch

@gretchenmcculloch.com

12 Sept

This is a fun little multilingual vocab quiz for anyone who's looking for some Saturday morning entertainment taketest.xyz/multilang-vo...

theonion.comExperts Advise Against Throwing Laptop Across Office Even Though It Will Feel IncredibleWASHINGTON—Explaining that the negative consequences in the long term outweigh any short-term satisfaction, experts from the American Psychological Association issued a statement Friday advising indiv...

10 Sept

Who's gonna stop me, though? theonion.com/experts-advi...

10 Sept

Though I have to admit it's probably less satisfying when you work from home.

9 Sept

Welp, guess who just got laid off.

9 Sept

Thanks, everyone. I've been worried that this was coming for a while now (since there have been other rounds of layoffs that affected other teams over the last couple of years), but I'm still kind of reeling. It's wild to think that you can have the rug pulled out from under you so fast.