I’m a member of the American Copy Editors Society (ACES). I spent several days in Pittsburgh for their annual conference. For months I have been participating in their #ACESChat every other week. I was so excited to meet my copy editor friends in the physical real, so excited to discuss grammar, editing, and inclusionary language. ACES 2015 did not disappoint. It was like living my favorite dream for three days.

These are my people.

It was a sentiment that rang from every session, swept through the halls, and surged from the chests of all the attendees. Copy editors, are notoriously introverted. We spend most of our days in cubicles and offices, alone, reading, writing, reading about writing, and writing about reading. We are often surrounded by people who do not understand how much we love the English language.

But — for three glorious days — we are engulfed by people who get it.

For three days, we didn’t have to hide our nerdiness. For three days, we didn’t have to explain what “decompress” means or why we need to do it every day. We were free to love language and punctuation and there were no apologies necessary. In fact, we reveled in it. Continue reading →