Veteran copy editor Pam Nelson, who we feature in this week's "Word Count" column, suggests these blogs on copy editing and language:

John McIntyre's You Don't Say

Bill Walsh's The Slot

Andy Bechtel's The Editor's Desk

Pam Robinson's Words at Work

There are different, competing claims about the origin of the term rule of thumb. I prefer the idea that it stems from the fact that the length from the tip of the thumb to the knuckle is about one inch (or if you're a pilot and you use 1:500,000 charts, about 10 nautical miles).

In any case, they are useful guidelines that make it easier to do something without thinking it through from first principles each time. Here are ten of mine as applied to writing:

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Steal Thunder, a brand-development company in California, writes a blog about "brand moves that get our attention." Here one of the partners writes about inspiring branding from, well, not exactly the world's sexiest retailer: "So I enter the local Smart&Final and have to walk past the checkout, and as I glance up I see the little tagline on the checker's LCD, right where it pays to be reminded: 'The Smaller, Faster Warehouse Store.' So many of the companies we work with struggle to position themselves simply. They want to get to that nirvana of 'one simple, repeatable idea' that not only sets them apart from everyone else, but helps the right customers love them." Read the entire post here.

Next time you're on the green, try not to airmail your shot into the drink, cabbage or kitty litter, okay? To get a handle on golf's rich vocabulary, we called PGA professional and author Mark Blakemore, who runs well-known golf schools in Northern California. Mark takes us down the linguistic fairway:

Airmail. "It means you either hit a shot that flew too far, or a drive that carried in the air farther than anybody else's ball."

Albatross. "A score of three under par on a hole, which doesn't happen very often. The word comes from the fact that an albatross is a rare bird. Naming hierarchy in scoring is like that. A hole in one on a par five, for example, is called a condor, which is an almost extinct bird, of course.

Cabbage. "Slang for long grass off the edges of a fairway. It describes very long rough, like those at the British Open or U.S. Open. The words spinach and lettuce are also used."

Drink. "Refers to a water hazard. 'In the drink' means into the water."

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How do you capture the flavor and texture of another language in your writing? To find out we spoke to Alfredo José Estrada, Cuban-born author of the novel Welcome to Havana, Señor Hemingway and the forthcoming history, Havana: Autobiography of a City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Both books lyrically convey Cuban culture and language across a span of historical periods. Alfredo explains how he makes this happen:

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Here are a few favorite blogs of dictionary editor Erin McKean, who we interviewed in this week's "Behind the Dictionary" feature. Make sure to check her own blogs, one on language called Undefined, and one on sew-it-yourself dresses called A Dress A Day!

Cat and Girl, "off-kilter comics"

Cool Tools, "just what the man said"

Crabwalk, "a writer for the Dallas Morning News daily paper"

Heaneyland!, "my friend Francis's blog, mostly puzzles, comics, and wry daily observations"

Language Hat, "a linguistics-in-action blog"

43 Folders, "productivity blog; fun tricks to do stuff faster"

This Is Broken, "Mark Hurst's blog showing examples of bad design and interaction"

Toothpaste for Dinner, "another off-kilter comic"

Erin McKean is the editor of the The New Oxford American Dictionary, the New World cousin of the authoritative, if bulky, Oxford English Dictionary (20 volumes!). She fell in love with words early -- Erin's wanted to be a lexicographer since she was eight years old. She got her wish, working on the Thorndike-Barnhart children's dictionaries for eight years after getting a BA/MA in Linguistics. She's been at Oxford since 2000. We spoke to Erin about writing dictionaries:

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