Theodore Menline Bernstein (November 17, 1904 – June 27, 1979) was an assistant managing editor of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and from 1925 to 1950 a professor at the

Columbia University School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism sc ...

Biography

Bernstein obtained his B.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1924. Among many other responsibilities in the 1950s and 1960s, it fell to Bernstein and his colleague, Lewis Jordan, to make up the next day's front page of the ''Times''. His colleagues often saved his drafts on particularly newsworthy days. During the run-up to the

Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fin ...

fiasco in 1961, the two settled on a four-column lead headline that put the invasion into dramatic perspective. However, under pressure from President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

, publisher

Orvil Dryfoos Orvil Eugene Dryfoos (November 8, 1912 – May 25, 1963) was the publisher of ''The New York Times'' from 1961 to his death. He entered ''The Times'' family via his marriage to Marian Sulzberger, daughter of then-publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger ...

ordered that the story be toned down, and the headline reduced to one column. Bernstein and Jordan were both infuriated, even after Dryfoos personally explained his decision to them. The story is told in detail in ''Without Fear or Favor'' by former Times editor

Harrison Salisbury Harrison Evans Salisbury (November 14, 1908 – July 5, 1993), was an American journalist and the first regular ''New York Times'' correspondent in Moscow after World War II. Biography Salisbury was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He gradu ...

Publications

He wrote or co-wrote 7 books on

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraints, a field that includes domain ...

and

usage The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...

, which have all been reprinted and

republished The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a b ...

since their first appearances. They are: * ''Headlines and Deadlines: A Manual for Copy Editors'' (1933) (coauthored with Robert E. Garst) () * ''Watch Your Language: A Lively, Informal Guide to Better Writing, Emanating from the News Room of the New York Times'' (1958) () * ''More Language that Needs Watching: Second Aid for Writers and Editors, Emanating from the News Room of the New York Times'' (1962) () * ''The Careful Writer'' (1965) () * ''Miss Thistlebottom's Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer's Guide To The Taboos, Bugbears, and Outmoded Rules of English Usage'' (1971) () * ''Bernstein's Reverse Dictionary'' (1975) (with the collaboration of Jane Wagner) () * ''Dos, Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage'' (1977) (with the assistance of Marylea Meyersohn and Bertram Lippman) ()

Quotes

"Now, I am a firm believer in democracy, but I also believe that there are some fields of human activity in which a count of noses does not provide the best basis for law and order."—from ''The Careful Writer''

References

External links

'Theodore M. Bernstein Papers 1922-1981
(Columbia University Library archive listing)
Theodore M. Bernstein papers
Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bernstein, Theodore Menline American copy editors The New York Times editors 1904 births 1979 deaths Columbia University alumni 20th-century American writers