The word of the week is “Jesus,” which is kind of an ambitious place to start.

I type the word “Jesus” on a regular basis – I work with many manuscripts that revolve around him (or Him?). Recently, I was doing a round of quick edits on something and I accidentally edited the “u” out of one of the many instances of “Jesus.”

“Jess.”

I paused my editing whirlwind to laugh. One exempt vowel, and “Jess” is being baptized in the Jordan, which is still great, but certainly lacks same significance.

One “u.”

I don’t think anyone needs to be obsessive about “getting it right” the first time, especially when it comes to words. I am decidedly on the side of just getting out of the way and WRITING, of allowing the many others in the chain of publication to take care of things like a missing “u.”

But when I do catch things like that, I am grateful for the reminder that combing through a manuscript for little oddities matters because words matter. And, evidently, one “u” can change everything.