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Ruth Walker, member of the Monitor family

Ms. Walker has passed on. Here’s a brief bio and a link to some of her best columns.

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John Nordell/TCSM/File
  • By Staff

We regret to report that longtime Monitor staffer and contributor Ruth Walker passed away Sept. 4. Ruth joined the Monitor in Boston in 1978 as a recent Oberlin College grad.

She held many posts in Boston and abroad: New England bureau reporter, business reporter, editorial writer, and deputy editor. She was also a staff correspondent in Germany, Australia, and Canada. As befits someone who loves, respects, and is curious about language, Ruth began writing about words in her “Verbal Energy” column in 2004, when she was copy desk chief.

Here’s a list of Monitor copy editor Casey Fedde's favorite "Verbal Energy" columns:

How to be possessive about apostrophes

How many o's in 'ka-booom'?

The wages of typos – in pounds and pence

Sit tight, drive safe, and watch for flat adverbs

Constitutional copy-editing

Slipping into my cloak of transparency

The copy editor who came in from the cold

The colonization of our book titles

Spacing out, but just one at a time

Pointing our way to clear communication

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Mark Sappenfield
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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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