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1 Have you ever stood on the outskirts of a gathering of people and wondered how to refer to them all at once? I found myself wondering just that at an editors’ conference I attended some years ago. There they were: such a huge ……… of editors – a bunch of editors? No, a bunch of flowers. A collection of editors? No, a collection of antiques. An amalgam – no, that’s dentists. What is the collective noun for editors? Well, why not ask them? So I sent out an SOS on various email lists, and this is what came back (with acknowledgements where I know them):

Carol in Indiana said ‘Depending on the size of the group, it could be a ream, galley, or proof of editors. Or, perhaps you are referring to the more classic and always correct punctilio of editors’. Sara in Boston said ‘I don’t know the “official” word, but how about a nitpick?’ Dwight in Florida suggested that ‘a delusion of editors sounds almost as good as a screed of editors’. John Bangsund in Melbourne suggested a barrage was appropriate, and Rishi in India recommended a column.

The suggestions also included a stroke, a pedantry, a colophon, an appendix, a bracket, a quire, or a chapter of editors. Going down the path of generic names like hoover for all vacuum cleaners, Kat in Rochester, NY, recommended a fowler or a strunk of editors. And another New Yorker, Eli, put a bit of a lid on it for a while by saying he was ‘starting to get board [sic] of editors’ (pun entirely intended)!

An individual editor was described as an itchypencil (from Al in California) and from that comes the disease that afflicts all editors: itchypencilitis.

This suggestion was what gave me the idea for a title for the little light-hearted moments that appear between the parts of this book. Haven’t you often spotted something on a signpost and thought ‘Oh for a pencil to write that down’? That’s itchypencilitis. So these moments are called itchypencils – how I wish for a handy pencil when these moments occur!

Martha in Boston suggested an emendment of editors while Ginny in Seattle thought an opinion of editors was appropriate.

Some suggestions I would blush to include in a serious journal, let alone a book, so I’ll stop here with a contribution from my friend Gerry in Ottawa: ‘According to An Exaltation of Larks by James Lipton, there are actually four collective nouns for editors – a mangle of copy editors, a caprice of assignment editors, a dyspepsia of city editors and an ultimatum of executive editors. For what it’s worth, there’s also a scoop of reporters, a platitude of sports writers and a query of checkers’.