Arjun Savel

“OK but hear me out: I get that we’re copy editors and all, but why do we have to be like that when we see anything spelled incorrectly?”

Kendrick Lamar’s performance at the Staples Center isn’t so much of a culmination for me as it is a milestone.

“You get to the point, eventually, that you see only the grammar.”

What follows is a telling (no, retelling) / Of error forced by ego (built by spelling, / Grammar, diction, and nice punctuation) / Of premature relief and exaltation / Of man — of boy — of child — of wond'rous pain / An Intern who made edits all in vain.

I stare at the page, increasingly aware of the mounting pressure. Furtively glancing side to side, I attempt to logically deduce a solution, anxiously scouring my memories for a precedent.

Of course, I don’t tell him that copy editing just feels intrinsically satisfying. I don’t tell him that it allows me some miniscule amount of order and linear progression as I come to terms with the notion that I, as a freshman, can only pretend to have plans for my own future.

The more involved I get in copy editing, the more absorbed I get in the actual rules of real grammar. When I write weird dialogue or add that extra hyphen, I end up throwing myself off more than the reader.