In my former workplace was Judy S, one of the four video producer/directors in the unit when I signed on there.  I liked Judy quite a bit, though she was generally considered a pain, and knew it, for her wanton refusal to stray from ‘procedure’.

Judy dabbled in little theatre, and passed along to me once that someone experienced in amateur thespiana told her she was the kind of cast member who was scary, because her reading of her lines was always perfect.

Explanation: that should another member of the cast forget his/her line, the specter of an impromptu ‘bridge’ to keep the whole thing moving along could make the ‘perfect’ actor freeze.

Judy also wrote.  She related that during one quick in-person read-through of a submission, the editor looked up from the page and commented approvingly, ‘You use semi-colons!’ and moved on.  Imagine semi-colons getting an author’s foot in the door.

Recently, I encountered “usen’t” for the first time.  For the usen’t novice, this link presents a quick primer.  I do wonder if usen’t mightn’t light up an editor’s face like semi-colons, in spite of the linked opinion that its use leads to ‘cafard, parochialism, censoriousness’.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the use of the word ‘cafard’ could lead to parochialism and censoriousness.

By the way, just a warning: autocorrect doesn’t like ‘usen’t’ one single bit.