John McIntyre blogging

John McIntyre (the Baltimore Sun's AME for the copy desk) has started a Sun-hosted blog called You Don't Say.

He published his inaugural post today, focusing on a rein-reign error in a headline and explaining the difference between homophones and homographs and why some idioms trip us up more than others:

The other problem with reign and rein is that the usage that gets confused most commonly is a buried metaphor. We no longer ride horses much, but we still take the reins when we assume control or give free rein when we surrender control to someone else. The English language is full of stock expressions that started out as metaphors and have since worn smooth with use.

John warned me that the blog is aimed at general readers and might be too basic for copy editors. (This is where I admit that I didn't know what a homograph was.) But I think he's off to a good start.