Editing
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Inspiration for Editors
Editors continuing to ply their trade in a world often unwilling to recognize its importance can use a dose of enthusiasm from a veteran. Be sure to catch this interview with New York editor Robert Gottlieb (80), who is not afraid to say he much prefers editing to writing and that he doesn’t want to be “creative.” If drudgery is getting you down, the words of an editor of famous authors so eager to see a revised manuscript he doesn’t care about dinner will bolster your confidence.
(Thanks to Julie Kuma for bringing this to our attention.)
The SWET Weblog invites readers to alert us to articles, interviews, and websites to bring to the attention of Japan-connected wordsmiths. Send messages and contributions to weblog@swet.jp.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Yet more editing in restaurants
The Washington Post has a piece up on one writer’s desire to do editing work even while dining out: “Typos a la Carte, Ever A Specialty of the House.” Jane Black writes of her fantasy to take a “distinctive purple pen” to the error-ridden menus in the restaurants she frequents.
Not only did this article connect nicely to my earlier post on the Typo Eradication Advancement League (also mentioned by Black), it taught me a new word: mesclun, “a mixture of young tender greens.” Black has seen this replaced with “mescaline” on more than one occasion, probably thanks to auto-correction in word processing software—the Cupertino effect.
The auto-correct feature is a potentially dangerous line of defense. That mesclun/mescaline problem could be the computer’s, not the chef’s. One mistake I’ve never seen on a menu but would actually savor is the one I lived in fear of when I worked in Boston. Despite my attempts to stop it, my Microsoft Word program would always change the word for Italy’s famous cured meat into what it assumed I meant to type. The night we closed an issue, I would have nightmares that when the magazine hit the stands, one of my reviews would describe “the delicate sweet and salty balance of melon and prostitute.”
Well, at least it was consistent.
(Spotted on Language Log.)
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Guerrilla editing on the road
The Chicago Tribune has a fun story up about the Typo Eradication Advancement League. Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson spent a few months traveling around the United States, finding and offering to correct mistakes (or, you know, mistake’s) wherever they found them.
Sometimes the people whose shopfronts were marred by these errors welcomed the correction; sometimes they rejected the interference. And sometimes the brave editors performed a bit of corrective graffiti even when they didn’t get permission to do so. One successful rescue began this way:
A block later, they stopped. Outside a clothing store, Deck noticed the lack of an apostrophe in the window type—it read “Women’s & Mens.” They entered, and two clerks with white-blond hair perked up.
“Hi, we’re driving around the country fixing typos,” Deck explained,* “and we noticed one side of your sign out front has an apostrophe and one doesn’t for some reason. So we were wondering if you have a spare apostrophe we could stick in there. Or I could just do it.”
“My, that’s specific,” the first clerk said.
“I’m not sure we keep spare apostrophes,” the other said.
* Really, what editor hasn’t wanted to say this at some point?
Check out the TEAL website for the complete record of the daring duo’s journey. (Spotted on Digg.)