Goodman: "Mothers face a unique set of workplace challenges"

In what looks like a hopeful trend, the Courier only lightly bruised Ellen's column this week, originally titled "You've Been Momified," from May 10. But it was a shade too long for the space available, so the copy editor went to work. You have to be really careful about this if you want to maintain the integrity of the piece.

Here's an example of an editor turning nuance into nonsense:

Goodman: "Mothers are still treated as if they were a third gender in the workplace."

Courier: "Mothers are a third gender in the workplace."

The original headline is a tipoff that we're going to see some entertaining agony over the passive voice, and our copy editor does not disappoint. Here's one of many:

Goodman: "Then they tucked a little telltale factoid into some of the resumes with a tip-off about mom-ness. It described her as an officer in a parent-teacher association. And -- zap -- she was mommified."

Courier: "... It described her as an officer in a parent-teacher association. And - zap - mommified her."

By changing the voice arbitrarily, the editor reassigns the subject of the sentence, moving the action -- zap -- from the implied hiring officers to the factoid, serving us a plate of instant gibberish.