Of particular interest to the copy editors (professional and amateur) in our group:
http://www.design-police.org/
BWAHAHAHA!
Yes, folks, this is the kind of stuff I point out for a living. Duly forwarded to the TIME staff and a few other friends.
waht do 'widow' and 'river' mean in copy edit speak?
"River" is new to me. But a "widow" is when a single word spills onto the next line or the next page in a paragraph of text. We try to avoid them for aesthetic reasons (I've never seen the big deal, myself).
Yeah, I confess "river" is not a term I've run across much either. Like, ever. I suspect it's more graphic slang than text-related.
I don't have a problem with a widow that breaks to another line, unless, as Gaz mentioned, it goes to another page, or jumps below some art or other graphic element. Then, not so good.