Word nerds and punctuation perfectionists rejoice! Encounter Culture host Charlotte Jusinski ends the season in grand, grammatically correct fashion with Dr. Maggie DePond, exhibition copy editor for the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Maggie also lends her talents to El Palacio magazine, casting a last, learned glance over every issue before it goes live. 

The pair geek out over the intricacies of language, style guide rivalries, and challenges associated with distilling eons of information into 100-word captions. Buckle in for syntax shenanigans, a touch of ASMR, and permission to end sentences with a preposition.

Ever wondered who edits all the text accompanying every exhibition in the four state museums of Santa Fe (the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Museum of International Folk Art, the New Mexico History Museum, and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture)? 

The answer is Dr. Maggie DePond.

The work, which is often tedious, requires a tenacious character and plenty of red pencils.  For all its old-fashioned aspects, copy editing is a revolutionary profession. Who else but a copy editor could refer to medieval usage of the singular “they/them” to support our modern personal pronoun debate? “I feel that by doing that,” Maggie says, “I’m also teaching other writers what language is, the spectrum of language, and how language can evoke feelings.” And, by extension, every lucky museum goer in the state.

Thank you for joining Encounter Culture this season. Season three coming soon!

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

The Chicago Manual Of Style

Associated Press Style Guide

Elements Of Indigenous Style

Merriam-Webster Twitter 

Visit https://newmexicoculture.org for info about our museums, historic sites, virtual tours and more.

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Encounter Culture, a production of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, is produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios.

Hosted by Charlotte Jusinski, Editor at El Palacio Magazine

Technical Director: Edwin R. Ruiz

Recording Engineer: Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe

Executive Producer: Daniel Zillmann

Show Notes: Lisa Widder

Associate Editor: Helen King

Theme Music: D’Santi Nava

Instagram: @newmexicanculture

For more, visit podcast.nmculture.org.