The position of Copy Editor has had a rich and varied history with the Tattler since the newspaper’s birth in 1892. Most Tattler issues display unmistakable signs of Copy’s presence: although copy editing had its modest origins in unreadable scratches scrawled over each article (hence the origin of the moniker “Copy,” as the unfortunate editor would have to rewrite each of the destroyed articles), the advent of modern electronics has significantly eased the process. Each Copy Editor in turn worked their hardest dealing with em dashes, en dashes, o dashes, p dashes, q dashes, comma splices, coma splices, colon failure, colorectal surgery, and worst of all, ambiguous hyphenation: a little-known case in which the Tattler was sued for distribution of marijuana on school grounds saw the day saved by Copy Editor Darnell Shoe ’71, who changed an unfortunate instance of “high school students” to “high-school students” in the nick of time. Whether the sentence structure was parallel, perpendicular, or even skew, the Copy Editor has always been ready to tackle each aspect.
All good things must come to an end, however. As of this issue, the position of Copy Editor will no longer exist. In an increasingly modern time where the definition of a dangling modifier is only a click away, the act of poring over papers brimming with unparsable sentences has become as intransitive as a verb in a Sports article. Journalistic jargon has been japed jerastically, and it seems that most voice their concerns only passively about the grammatical structure of our vaunted articles.
The abolishment of the Copy position is one of a series of reforms that pushes the Tattler in the direction of a new, more modern newspaper in accordance with the Ithaca City School District (ICSD)’s technological integration policies. Beginning with the May issue, the Tattler will move away from its ages-old system of being printed at BOCES; instead, issues will be manufactured and mass-produced by Code Red Robotics. In addition, we will be rolling out a series of signature laptops, which we are calling Tattlerbooks, to be distributed alongside each issue of our conventional newspaper. Subscriber applications for the brand-new Tattler will be available on the website, www.ihstattler.com, beginning on April 1. A free action figure of our superintendent Luvelle Brown, who made these sweeping modernizations possible, will be included with each advance order.
Although I am confident about the new direction the Tattler is taking, my mood—conditional or otherwise—has been shifting as the position of Copy Editor fades into the mists of backwards society. As a subordinate to the main clause around these parts, boss-in-boss John Yoon ’16, I appealed to him for a memento ensuring that Copy does not bow out as merely a one-word modifier.
Therefore, in memory of the Copy Editor position, I present to you this new section dedicated to informing and enlightening the public of its past progressiveness. All of the articles featured here have been preserved in their original form, untouched by any of the wicked magics and addictive ink our auxiliary editors have resorted to in the past. With the Copy Section entering the canon of the Tattler, I can finally rest unburdened by the complications of the past perfect, knowing readers will understand the plight that unfolds every month behind the nucleus of each article’s structures and phrases.
