Vocabulary.com Blog Contributor
Merrill Perlman
Merrill Perlman is adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and president of Merrill Perlman Consulting, offering consulting and freelance editing services and training in journalism, grammar and usage. Among her clients are The New York Times, ProPublica and the Poynter Institute. She writes the "Language Corner" column and blog for Columbia Journalism Review. Merrill retired in June 2008 after 25 years at The New York Times, most recently as director of copy desks with responsibility for managing 150 copy editors.
Word CountWriters Talk About Writing
Unequal Rights: All Synonyms are Not the Same
Some cautionary advice to journalists and other writers about using near-synonyms.
Merrill Perlman explains why journalists should appreciate the special connotations of seemingly synonymous words.
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Word CountWriters Talk About Writing
Oral History: Of Spoken and Written Words
Why do writers increasingly use "verbal" instead of "oral" these days?
Merrill Perlman considers why writers avoid the word "oral" and use "verbal" instead.
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Merrill Perlman settles a dispute between a sportswriter and his editor about whether the word "fraught" needs to take a preposition.
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The editors of The Associated Press Stylebook recently announced some changes to the Bible of copy editors. Among their pronouncements: e-mail would lose its hyphen, and cell phone would lose its space. Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, gives us the full rundown.
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We welcome back Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review. Here she considers how "scapegoat" gets turned into "escape goat" — an error that actually has an etymological basis.
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About Language
Look it Up! A Dictionary by Any Other Name...
News recently broke about words like chillax and vuvuzela getting added to the Oxford Dictionary of English. Merrill Perlman, who writes the "Language Corner" column for Columbia Journalism Review, noticed that many reports of the story couldn't get the name of the dictionary right. Here is her guide for the perplexed.
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