How to make a copy editor laugh

Edited this gem today from a story about two running events that will be part of a community festival:

For more information on the runs, call (phone number).
---------
A couple years ago while writing about a police incident, the reporter said that someone was driving a miniature van.

 

"Sorry, but that story budgeted for 12 inches? It's wound up a lot longer than that."

 

I hear that at least once every deadline day, and we have three editions a week. Our managing editor has come to expect it.

 

The editor told me to write as long as I wanted, we have plenty of space.

 

We had a story, a Q&A with a local school board candidate, that jumped from 1B to 2B...to 3B...to 6B before it was finally said and done. Can Tuesday get here soon enough so this guy can get soundly beaten in the voting booths?

 

Ran into this a lot when I worked for a weekly that would run statements from each candidate for office. Finally had to put a word limit on 'em.

 

Two great copy editing stories:

When he was with the Dallas Morning News, Mark Blaudschun covered an OU football game and his lead was something like: "Oklahoma, where the wins come sweepin' down the plains." Copy editor adhered to style and changed "wins" to "victories."

Myself, I was writing a Final Four preview/regional wrapup package in 1995. Mississippi State was going to play Syracuse in Final Four semifinals. Jackie Sherrill, then Miss State FB coach, had castrated a cow to inspire his team when it played Texas. I wrote something like, "No word if Jackie Sherrill will pump up the football team by castrating an orange." Argued with an editor for 5 minutes because he reasoned that "you can't castrate an orange."

 

Wish I had thought of that but I think the argument was more along the lines of me trying to explain the difference between figurative and literal. Probably only took a coupla months off the end of my life, no big deal.

 

Well played.

 

The way I heard it, he performed a hysterectomy on a bull.

 

Yeah, the bain of my existence.