Hot Time in the City

Toronto continued to sizzle today but we kept cool for the most part for the day’s EAC conference sessions. The highlight without question was Margaret Mahan’s delightfully witty keynote on the Chicago Manual of Style. As the main editor of the 15th edition, she had lots of inside secrets to share — who knew there was so much personality influencing the choices made for each edition? She even had a replica of the 1906 version to show us. And yes, she acknowledged the 12th had the best section on hyphenation (see yesterday’s quiz). I’ve always been a fan of CMOS, but now I’m a fan of all those who labour to produce it, quirks and all, thanks to Margaret’s enthusiasm.
Next up for me was Beatrice Baker’s presentation on style guides, an excellent exploration of how to approach a client and sell this as a profit item, especially when other editing work is hard to come by. After lunch, Sally McBeth’s session on plain language was completely full, so jammed in fact that there were many people without a handout. This isn’t always a tragedy for conference sessions, but it was in this case because Sally wanted us to refer to the handout during her presentation. Furthermore, she had about a dozen items to pass around the room, but they went every which way and I only saw two.
The AGM followed eventually, continuing until after 6 pm. It was well organized and without bloodshed.
For dinner we trekked south by car, transit and on foot to the venue for the banquet, a trendy looking restaurant with bad acoustics. The meal was very fine, but the conversation was the main reason I’m glad I was there. Oh yeah, and the ladies’ room. Olive described it as post-modern Italianate.