For about five years, beginning in 1995, I worked on the copy desk at the Village Voice. Aiding me in the battle against error were Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the fourteenth edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, published in 1993, and a samizdat-looking document containing the house style rules and bearing the enigmatic title "Small Craft Warnings." At any given moment one or all of these vade mecums lay open on my desk; the answer for anything could be found therein. Read the story here.
