Stuff I index

Plaintiff testified that since a forty-pound bag of chicken parts dropped on her neck at work, she has neck and shoulder pain, and her whole body shakes.

Concordances: Part III

It is an index, not a concordance, if it meets these standards: Usability Does the index appropriately anticipate the needs of its users? Are the significant concepts indexed? Are there appropriate alternative terms for accessing concepts? Are special treatments such as italics and boldface appropriate to the complexity of the material and the needs of […]

Clever writing: Does it belong on this blog, even when it has nothing to do with indexing?

I say yes.  And so I offer this tale from a little-known village called Ashoe. CORRESPONDENT: Sorry just to correct you there – we thought this village was called ASHOE, but when we got here, we realized that the house where the alleged abuses occurred was actually a shoe. ANCHOR: I’m sorry, a what? CORRESPONDENT: Well […]

Breaking news about the Oxford comma

Life is nasty, brutish, and short (or, to introduce unnecessary ambiguity, “life is nasty, brutish and short.”)  More here. The “Oxford” is that final comma before the “and”.  It got its name from the Oxford University Press, whose style guide has been requiring its use for decades. Wikipedia describes the Oxford as the comma “immediately […]

Concordances: Part II

The Life and Art of Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917): The Achievement of an American Artist by Martin Pops The picture to the right contains an index and a concordance to The Life and Art of Albert Pinkham Ryder, a monograph recently published by the Mellon Press which costs about $200. Click on the picture and […]

Concordances: Part I

Concordance [kon-kawr-dns] noun. An alphabetical list of the principal words of a book, with a reference to the page in which each occurs. You: Wait; that sounds like an index. Me: But it’s not. I am an indexer, not a concordancer. One goal of this blog is to help people understand the important distinctions between indexes […]

Digital rules to live by

A person named Daniel Sieberg wrote these rules, not me.  Good rules?  Realistic rules?  You decide. I will live in the real world. It can be wonderful to learn more about the lives of my friends and family members through social networks, but I won’t let the screen become my only connection. I must choose […]

Too much turquoise?

Pshaw! Almost none.

This week in NYC: largest book fair in the U.S.

BookExpo America (BEA) is the largest annual book trade fair in the United States. Nearly all significant book publishers in the United States, and many from abroad, have booths and exhibits at BEA, and use the fair as an opportunity to showcase upcoming titles, sell current books, socialize with colleagues from other publishing houses, and […]

So I’ve got a math problem for you

If you’ve got an indexer brain like mine, forget it.  Our brains can’t solve problems like this. So I’ve got a math problem for you, says the man who has consumed a prime number’s worth of rum and Cokes. “I live at 189th Street and Wadsworth. Now, if I weigh 240 pounds, and I want […]