What is the 'it'?

The blog of the book

proofing

  • Am I a comma nerd? We are about to find out.

    Much of the time, commas are little more than convenient signalling devices, showing the reader how the various components of a sentence are supposed to work together. Often enough, the reader is going to be able to figure out what the sentence is telling them even if there is not a comma in sight. Occasionally, Continue reading

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  • Katie (or is it Katy?)

    When I saw that the High Court yesterday granted special leave to appeal in a matter titled “Taylor v Killer Queen LLC”, my heart skipped a beat: are the Justices taking on a case in which Roger Taylor, the drummer of Queen, is suing some hinky antipodean Queen tribute band? The answer, unsurprisingly, is “no”, Continue reading

  • I seem to have a problem with definitions

    At the end of January we had a couple of days in Sydney. The purpose of the trip was so that I could speak to the new intake of judges’ associates at the Federal Court about proofing judgments. But we packed in a decent amount of fun before that. A train journey! Art! Food! Ferries! Continue reading

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  • The hyphen ninja

    Mugga Way, this morning. I have questions. Is it a school for learning how to be a secret ninja? “High Court judge by day, ninja by night.” (Be afraid.) Or is it the school that is secret: a secret school for ninja? (If it is the latter, they really ought to rethink their strategy: putting Continue reading

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  • Without a paddle: the third part

    There comes a point in any self-respecting spy novel, usually about two thirds of the way in, where the story kicks into overdrive. John Le Carre’s books are perhaps an extreme example of this. The painstaking, methodical teasing out of backstory, intrigue, and the setting up of whatever is to be the main action falls Continue reading

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  • The C word(s)

    May years ago, one of our boys came home from primary school with an important announcement: someone in their class had used “the C word”. We were somewhat taken aback by this. There was no conversation that could come out of it which we were anywhere near ready to have. So it was with a Continue reading

  • It’s all fun and games until somebody loses an “i”

    A couple of times each year a judgment comes across my desk in which what was intended to be a reference to “the Minister” turns out, on closer inspection, to be a reference to “the Minster”. The judge didn’t pick it up. Whoever typed the judgment (if it wasn’t the judge) didn’t pick it up. Continue reading

  • Learning journey

    According to Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. Oscar Wilde’s metrics are different from mine. Imagine that you were a senior officer at an important public institution, and that a significant part of your job involved making sure that Continue reading