I didn't realize how central the Internet had become to my life until two weeks ago, when it just stopped working (blame Comcast), and the problem wasn't so much that I'd be bored, not likely, as that I couldn't do my job. Frantic calls to customer service and the office, which was long closed.

Intro to Dan: I work on a piecework basis, dividing my time between fifteen or so Tricky Little Edits that can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes, if the writer screwed up in some really exotic way (I've got a standard warning email for folks who write in all lowercase), and a thrice-a-day, triple-the-pay Big Elaborate Edit, which takes me 30 minutes to an hour-and-a-half and occasionally demands the kind of creativity that, for me, is real editing. Not in large doses or anything, but it's there, and it is wonderful.

Some nights I have to give up the B.E.E. for awhile, because my browser keeps crashing, and yesterday, for the second time since I started training in on these, I was told that I'm supposed to be editing the B.E.E. in a completely different way. Though they are occasionally written by some real supergeniuses, you can say this about the T.L.E.s — they don't require a fact-checking call every time.

Yes, I'm complaining, but this is from a copy editor who prides himself on thoroughness, who once spent an hour looking up the correct etymology for an Elvish word, who has called to verify the accuracy of the word "decimated" in a lowly (but lovely: go Weck) sports summary. (Deadlines were not affected.) Also, without giving away too much about my current job: the B.E.E.s are not exactly government documents.

To think that editing them used to be fun. I hope that comes back once I learn this previously-unmentioned protocol and its assuredly-numerous exceptions.

Confession: Part of me is angry because, right before being blindsided, I was also called on a few comma splices.

And you know what? I was wrong, at least according to every authority I can find.

(The bloggers at Language Log, Yavin IV for the reactive grammar movement, are silent on the comma splice.)

A comma splice, as I've recently learned, is the improper joining of two independent clauses with just a comma. I usually manage to avoid them, because for most of my life, I've been basing my punctuation decisions on the weight a given mark can bear: semicolons are stronger than commas, periods and colons are stronger than semicolons. It's just something you sense, like when a sentence is floopy.

Usually a comma isn't strong enough to hold up that much clause, but sometimes I'll see, say, a "then" — it's usually a "then" — after the comma and decide that's enough support to keep the comma, and with it the whole sentence, from collapsing. I mean, "then" isn't a coordinating conjunction, but in low light, maybe you've had a few drinks...

So now I find out that I've had this huge blind spot which, owing to my intuitive — but as it turns out, imperfect — method, I haven't noticed before. My kingdom for a Columbia Guide to Standard American English!

Or better yet, a post from the rebels, letting me off the hook. (At least as far as my conscience is concerned. Yes, conscience.)

Curse my unorthodox correctness conditions!

No matter what I believe is acceptable, and "then" still feels kinda acceptable, Standard Edited English is against me; it has many allies, and if I want to play the game, I play by its rules. I can save a few comma splices in quoted dialogue, Standard Edited English's only safe haven for words like "gonna" and "alright," but everywhere else... let drop the Grammar Hammer.

It's the end of the month now, so I don't really have much to do. Quotas have been met, and the flow of piecework has slowed to a trickle. Maybe on Monday I'll wake up and find two or three documents waiting to be edited, but probably not. It's lucky, in a way, because I've only got one B.E.E. still waiting for me, and I'm going to put off going back to it for as long as I can.