Background
Theodore Bernstein was born November 17, 1904, in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Saul Bernstein, a lawyer, and Sarah Menline, who had taught in the New York public schools.
(The definitive writers’ handbook of alphabetized entries ...)
The definitive writers’ handbook of alphabetized entries that provides answers to questions of use, meaning, grammar, punctuation, precision, logical structure, and color. The Careful Writer is a concise yet thorough handbook, covering in more than 2,000 alphabetized entries the problems that give (or should give) writers pause before they set words to paper. It is perhaps the liveliest and most entertaining reference work for writers of our time—delighting while it instructs and amusing even as it scolds and cajoles the reader into skillful, persuasive, and vivid writing. The Careful Writer, Mr. Bernstein’s major work on usage, is an indispensible desk reference, and a perennial source of continuing reading pleasure.
https://www.amazon.com/Careful-Writer-Theodore-M-Bernstein/dp/0684826321?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0684826321
(Provides the aspiring journalist with an introduction to ...)
Provides the aspiring journalist with an introduction to the technical aspects of copy editing and writing headlines
https://www.amazon.com/Headlines-Deadlines-Manual-Copy-Editors/dp/0231048173?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0231048173
(Watch Your Language)
Watch Your Language
https://www.amazon.com/Watch-Your-Language-Informal-Emanating/dp/068970531X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=068970531X
(In this unusual dictionary, it is the meanings that are a...)
In this unusual dictionary, it is the meanings that are arranged alphabetically, to lead you to all those words you can't quite remember at the time.
https://www.amazon.com/Bernsteins-Reverse-Dictionary-Theodore-Bernstein/dp/1567231535?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1567231535
( Once you recall that Miss Thistlebottom was your elemen...)
Once you recall that Miss Thistlebottom was your elementary-school teacher who laid down all manner of taboos concerning the use of language, you will have an idea of what this book is about. In no sense permissive or radical, it topples the taboos that lack historical, logical or grammatical basis. It is a refreshing look at our living language, the perfect companion to the author's indispensable work, The Careful Writer. Mr. Bernstein writes four letters to Miss Thistlebottom that divide the book into four sections: "Witchcraft in Words," "Syntax Scarecrows," "Imps of Idioms," and "Spooks of Style." Can there be more than two "alternatives"? You'll find the answer in the Words section. Can something "grow smaller"? Ditto. How about Split Infinitives: is it proper to ever split one? Is "none" invariably singular? Take a look in the Syntax section. Isn't it absurd to say "if worst comes to worst" rather than "if worse comes to worst" or to say "head over heels" rather than "heels over head"? The section on idioms will enlighten you on these "absurdities." And then, is a preposition a proper word to end a sentence with? The section on Style will show you that some authoritarians don't know what they are talking about and don't know what rules are for. The scores and scores of entries in this book are crisp, lightly written and amply provided with illustrative material. They are designed to help anyone who writes anything--the student, the reporter, the copy editor, the professional writer-cast off the inhibitions and prohibitions that lack validity and cramp his writing style. An Appendix includes some rare, out-of-print sources of some of the bogies: William Cullen Bryant's Index Expurgatorius for writers on the old New York Post, James Gordon Bennett's "Don't List" for writers on the old New York Herald and Ambrose Bierce's blacklist Write It Right.
https://www.amazon.com/Miss-Thistlebottoms-Hobgoblins-Bugbears-Outmoded-ebook/dp/B00AECLFOY?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00AECLFOY
(Front: Do things burn up or down? And are they compared t...)
Front: Do things burn up or down? And are they compared to or with each other? Find out here! Back: Bring, or take, OK. But barbecue in space? Read all about it here!
https://www.amazon.com/Dos-Donts-Maybes-English-Usage/dp/0517345870?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0517345870
Theodore Bernstein was born November 17, 1904, in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Saul Bernstein, a lawyer, and Sarah Menline, who had taught in the New York public schools.
Theodore studied at DeWitt Clinton High School where he was associate editor of the Magpie, the school's literary magazine, and he was managing editor of the Daily Spectator at Columbia College, from which he graduated with a B. A. in 1924. Rejecting his parents' advice to become a lawyer, he went on to the Columbia School of Journalism, where he graduated with a B. Litt. in 1925.
Bernstein began work at the New York Times in May 1925. He started out at the copy desk, where he worked for five years and made his reputation as a copy editor. Bernstein was named suburban editor in 1930, a position he held until 1932, when he transferred to the foreign desk as assistant cable editor. Bernstein taught copy editing at Columbia's School of Journalism after his graduation in 1925 and continued teaching there until 1950. He started out as an instructor, and in 1934 was named an associate in journalism along with Robert E. Garst, who had preceded Bernstein on the staff of the Times in 1925. They collaborated on the book Headlines and Deadlines: A Manual for Copyeditors (1933). In 1939, Bernstein and Garst were named associate professors.
In 1939, Bernstein was promoted to cable editor at the Times, which was the equivalent of foreign editor. At age thirty-five, he was the youngest person to hold that position. He supervised the foreign correspondents covering World War II and the foreign copy desk, as well as the production of as many as six maps in one night, wrote the war headlines and news roundup on page one, and often worked from 3 P. M. to 3 A. M. Near the end of the war, Bernstein noted the difficulty of covering war news because of censorship and because so much territory was controlled by the enemy. The day of the Normandy invasion, Bernstein headed home at midnight and was about to have a highball when the newsroom called to say that the Germans were reporting the invasion. He downed the highball and headed back to the newsroom, where the next day's edition was produced using maps, drawings, and information Bernstein had prepared ahead of time.
In 1948, Bernstein became the assistant night managing editor, helping to select and place stories on the front page, and in 1950 he was named news editor. In 1952 he became assistant managing editor, an important assistant to Turner Catledge, who wanted brighter writing and editing in the Times. Bernstein held that position until 1969. In one incident during that time, Bernstein favored a more prominent place for and a fuller version of a story on the Cuban exiles that ran in the Times several days before the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961.
Bernstein began publishing an in-house newsletter in the autumn of 1951 that he called Winners and Sinners, "a bulletin of second-guessing issued occasionally from the southeast corner of the Times newsroom. " It started out with a circulation of about 600, intended for the writers and editors of the Times, but eventually 5, 000 outsiders - "freeloaders, " Bernstein called them - were on the mailing list. He wrote 389 issues of Winners and Sinners before turning it over to successors in January 1978. In it he cataloged errors (not mentioning names) and examples of good writing (mentioning names) under various headings, and ended with "Helpful Hints for Hatchet Men, " a brief lecture on the editing process. He loved puns and often laced his comments on imprecise or ungrammatical language with humor. Using material from Winners and Sinners, Bernstein published Watch Your Language (1958) and More Language That Needs Watching (1962).
In 1960, Bernstein went to Paris to direct the editorial revision and expansion of the international edition of the Times. In the fall of 1969 he became editorial director of the Times book division, but he returned to the news department when the book division was closed in 1971. He was executive editor of the New York Times Encyclopedic Almanac from 1969 to 1971 and was a consultant on usage for the Random House Dictionary beginning in 1966 and the American Heritage Dictionary beginning in 1969. He retired on July 1, 1972, but stayed on as a consulting editor at the Times, writing a column, "Bernstein on Words, " three times per week. Bernstein died in New York City.
( Once you recall that Miss Thistlebottom was your elemen...)
(The definitive writers’ handbook of alphabetized entries ...)
(In this unusual dictionary, it is the meanings that are a...)
(Front: Do things burn up or down? And are they compared t...)
(Provides the aspiring journalist with an introduction to ...)
(Watch Your Language)
Quotations: "On one side are the stiff-necked grammarians, brandishing rigid rules, which they wield whether or not the rules are supported by history, idiom, or certificates of convenience or necessity. On the other side are the soothing champions of the masses, with their battle cry, 'whatever the people say is okay by me; the people speak real good. ' This wordmonger refuses to join either camp; he takes up his position a trifle right of center. "
Quotes from others about the person
"I always felt he was looking over my shoulder. I wrote for Theodore Bernstein. He shaped this newspaper as much as anyone in its history. " - A. M. Rosenthal, executive editor of the Times
On September 2, 1930, Theodore Bernstein married Beatrice Alexander; they had one child.