I was reading an article on-line about graphic novel writer Alan Moore. In two places in the text, I found the word “(omega)” inserted for no apparent reason:
What is this all about? Some obscure British copyediting/proofreading mark that got left in the final text? Or some sinister codeword inserted by magician Alan Moore?
That’s funny, I read the same article and noticed the same thing.
It’s not just Alan Moore: this feature on Marjane Satrapi has:
and:
So, either it’s a proofreading mark unique to The Independent, or graphic novelists are taking over and this is the call to arms fnord. My money’s on the latter…
Too funny–I skimmed that article, too, but I missed the (omega)s.
fnord indeed!
Doesn’t it refer to improper use of a verb, or the improper tense used for an Omega verb?
Really? Is this like a “(sic)” notice?
I wondered if it meant that in the real paper it was skipping to an inside page?
It seems to occur adjacent to a word that might be in italics or quotes, but missing part of the coding. Sort of like a {i} without a {/i}, or vice versa.
I just scoured the office for a copy of the Independent on Sunday, and I have the answer: it’s where the page breaks fall, with a little dingbat graphic of an arrow to indicate “please turn over”.
My guess is that that particular arrow in the dingbat font is the same character as the omega in the standard Indy font. When the copy was transferred to the web, it was converted to “(omega)” because the web font didn’t support special characters.
Thanks, Colophon. I guess you’d know about obscure printing symbols.