The Rosetta Stone of Copy Editing   

Today's style hobgoblins aren't the traditional suspects like split infinitives, misplaced modifiers or even the dreaded who vs. whom question. The copy desks of the '90s grapple instead with interminable Internet addresses, naming the next millennium and the typographically incorrect symbol for the artist formerly known as Prince.

Resolution of such copy quagmires probably won't be found in the next edition of the AP Stylebook or the Chicago Manual of Style, but they've already been debated in the pages of Copy Editor, the national news-letter for professional copy editors.

Mary Beth Protomastro, 37, the newsletter's editor, publisher, owner and copy maven extraordinaire, works with one assistant in her Manhattan office compiling items of interest to people who closely follow the evolution of copy editing rules. She's Copy Editor's only full-timer, dictating style dogma with the help of a handful of copy editors, contributors and usage manuals. She founded the newsletter with her own savings and now operates it using funds generated solely from subscriptions, which cost $69 per year.

The idea for her seven-year-old bimonthly sprung out of necessity. Protomastro, who has been a copy editor at McCall's, Parents and American Photographer magazines, had often wondered why "there wasn't much out there" to keep copy editors connected. At the end of 1989, while working at McCall's, Protomastro received enough positive feedback to convince her that she needed to fill the style gap herself.

"At many magazines there's only one or just a couple of copy editors, and there's really nobody else on staff who's trained in copy editing," she says. "How could you keep in touch with what's going on with editors at other magazines?"

Copy Editor, an eight-page newsletter, boasts 2,500 subscribers, which have included people such as former copy editor and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, editors at Playboy, staffers at the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, and a top editor at the New York Times. For many publication editors across the country, Copy Editor is the final word on words.

"It's the best," says U.S. News & World Report news desk chief Bob Grover. "Well, it's the only. It's sort of one-of-a-kind."

Grover says Copy Editor's hints have helped him learn the grammatical terms for his style pet peeves. After six years as a subscriber, Grover says Copy Editor is the only publication he reads cover to cover.

Other wordsmiths loyal to Copy Editor include Norm Goldstein, editor of the AP Stylebook and a contributor to the newsletter, and Wall Street Journal Stylebook Editor Paul R. Martin, a self-described "charter subscriber" and also a member of the newsletter's editorial board.

Martin says Copy Editor attacks the "down-in-the-trenches" issues copy desks battle every day. "It has the logical, perfect answers," Martin says. "And you don't find that anywhere else."

Occasionally Copy Editor examines in painstaking detail copy questions that interest only the most die-hard grammar gurus. Not everyone, for example, will be riveted by "You Say Funguses, I say Fungi: The Latest on Latin Plurals" or "What's the difference between 1 cup parsley, chopped fine and 1 cup finely chopped parsley?" But Protomastro points out that it is Copy Editor's mission to take such issues seriously.

But not too seriously. An article in a recent issue, for example, dared to ask its perfectionist audience, "Are You Too Picky? Take Our Pedantry Test and Find Out."

Although Copy Editor's audience is almost totally comprised of professional editors to whom pickiness is a point of pride, Proto- mastro says she has been pleasantly surprised by the growing attention copy editing is receiving in the age of desktop publishing.

"I get an increasing number of subscriptions from people who aren't copy editors but work in corporate communications," Protomastro says. "I find it very encouraging that people who don't copy edit for a living are interested in these matters."

Some of the nontraditional subscribers have asked Protomastro to give Copy Editor a more all- encompassing, writer-friendly title that would embrace them as well. But she's not biting.

Copy editing is Protomastro's passion, and her publication will continue to reflect the fact that she has always been a stickler for the most arcane of copy matters. "And that's not a good thing," she says. "Sometimes I'll read an article that has nothing to do with language and I'll wonder, 'Why was this word used?' "

But in a business like copy editing, where heads can roll over using "which" instead of "that," there is a certain appreciation for such thoroughness and perfectionism. In addition to being the kind of profession that has people asking with a straight face whether or not the phrase "anal-retentive" is hyphenated, the world of copy editing is also one in which finger-pointing is widespread. Protomastro, though, aims for a corrective--not vindictive--approach.

"It's easy to be negative in a profession that focuses on mistakes," she says. "In Copy Editor, I try to explain a point by showing how a publication got it right. Of course, sometimes it's difficult to avoid naming culprits."

One crucial lesson that Protomastro has learned is that when one does name names, one better be sure to get them right. Publishing a newsletter for some of the world's most particular fault-finders can be quite intimidating, so each issue is carefully scrutinized by the newsletter's freelance editors. Over the years, only a few typos have crept in.

"When I write," Protomastro says, "I always have copy editors in mind."