Nothing stops me in my “reading tracks” faster than a misspelled word in an otherwise well-written novel. I liken it to the film breaking in an older movie theatre just when the plot is at the height of tension.
Has the “proofreader” gone the way of the ____________ (insert favorite extinct species here)? Do all editors only use spellcheck now?
Example: I am reading a novel called Pandora’s Curse and one glaring mistake is the reversal of “ie”: Simon Wiesenthal becomes Simon Weisenthal and the German word for shit (Scheisse) becomes Schiesse which is almost another German word: “to shoot”.
Am I nitpicking too much or does it bother any of the rest of you too?
We’re here quietly working away :). Seriously though it depends on the budget for the book what level of editing and proofing is done. Those kinds of mistakes are pretty bad and shouldn’t get through. I just finished reading a biography of Ian Dury which was a study in poor writing, poor proofing and worse editing. It got to the point I was reading in fascinated horror.
I managed to miss a total clanger in my SO’s latest book, it went past the editor, the proofreader and him as well. It got picked up at the blues stage where it cost money to fix. It’s extremely easy to miss stuff which still doesn’t excuse it.
No reputable publisher relies on spell check or that abomination, grammar check.
I saw a new book on J.R.R. Tolkien published recently. On the COVER the name is spelled Tolkein. Seems like somebody along the line should have caught that one.
A poorly proofed book will bring me near to tears (okay, not really, but it does stop my flow of reading.) I can overlook one or two minor flaws, but if a book has too many mistakes in it, it drives me bonkers.
(Hoping I don’t fall prey to a version of Gaudere’s Law, here.)
Uh, no. I’ve been copyediting for a New York fiction publisher for about 5 years, and even though my most frequent contact there thinks I walk on water, only twice have I been offered the chance to edit a Famous Author. (I had to turn it down both times, alas, because I was booked with other projects.) They are definitely not about to turn this important job over to a fan.
This is not the sort of thing publishers look for on potential copyeditors’/proofreaders’ resumes. You might like to see Quasi’s other proofreading thread for more information.
Scarlett, thanks, that’s a great thread. Almost a mini-seminar in proofreading/copyediting.
But I’m even more amazed at errors, after reading about everything that’s involved in getting a book to press. If the proofers/editors are that picky, how do obvious typos and misspellings make their way into major books?
It’s a real dilemma: As copyeditors/proofreaders, we strive for 100% perfection. It’s in our nature. But as humans (and realists), we know that errors will creep through. At the editing stage, it’s often a cost/profit analysis: I’ve already made the standard two or three passes through the manuscript, plus maybe one or two to look for specific items. Is it worth the extra hours for another pass to catch maybe two or three errors in 800 pages? Probably not.
There’s also the difference between a simple typo and a glaring error of fact or a grammatical error that shows egregious ignorance of the language. I’m much more forgiving of a typo in my pleasure reading (“from”/“form,” missing period, etc.) than I am of, say, “grizzly” for “grisly.”
You can comfort yourself by thinking of all the stuff we did catch that you didn’t see (and boy, could I tell some stories). We have to consider the work its own reward, because a good job is invisible.
Good point, Scarlett. A simple typo like your form/from example is minor compared to a grisly/grizzly mistake.
I’m in the middle of The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead. It’s the Everyman’s Library edition, and there have been a few simple typos – “lipe” for “lip”, for example. They stood out, but only because so much of the book must have been extremely difficult to get right. A major part of this book is the Pollit family’s made-up language and word-play.
This’d be a good book to use for a proofreading test, I think.
And I wouldn’t mind hearing some of those stories.
I read a copy of “Silverlock” that was so bad I ended up pulling out an eraser and fixing all the typos. I’m almost obsessive-compulsive about that kind of thing – my friends have all learned to know and hate the look I get in my eye when I’m reading something they’ve written … the “that’s spelled wrong/bad grammar but I shouldn’t say anything … must keep mouth shut …”
Oh, and foreign language errors bug me too. Being a French major and knowing a smattering of German and Latin (but little Spanish, despite 17 years as an Angeleno), I’ve been known to point out missing accent marks and such in movie theaters.
A handy way to catch a significant amount of typos (if you have the time) is to read the material aloud.
The worst is when you have to proof your own writing. It is so difficult to catch your own mistakes when you already know what you’re trying to say. It’s almost as bad as editing your own writing, which is like trying to pick out your favorite from amongst your own children.
Actually, most PR/CE tests are way worse than any manuscript would be in raw form. They’re designed to see how you’d do under the worst possible conditions. It’s a PR/CE axiom that the mistake you miss is the one that’s right next to another one – you get the first, but miss the second in the afterglow.
Oh, all right. Let’s see – there was the historical romance author who had Custer (her spelling was “Custard” :eek: ) alive and fighting at Wounded Knee. She changed that, but kept the erroneous plot device that it would have been a horrendous scandal for the white public at that time to find out about the slaughter of the Indians. Fact was, they knew, and they applauded it. (Kind of like what’s going on over in Pakistan . . . ) This was not revisionist fiction, either, just a simple romance novel.
Then there was this gem of a dangler: “Slowly he drew her breeches down, kissing her belly button, nuzzling the soft curls between her thighs as he pulled them loose and cast them aside.”
Once I was proofing a math book for which I had been instructed to ignore the author’s use of commas — he had strongly insisted that he wanted them left as is, because “he knew what he was doing.” Well, he didn’t, and I couldn’t ignore it. Some of those sentences, well, weren’t. They made him look like an idiot. So I carefully wrote a ton of tactful queries, showing why these sentences were nonsensical, and got most of them fixed.
Hmmm, I’m trying to think of more. But quite frankly, there are a lot of easily confused words that would look laughable or ignorant if they got into print that I change routinely with hardly a second thought.
Let’s see – there was the historical romance author who had Custer (her spelling was “Custard” :eek: ) alive and fighting at Wounded Knee. She changed that, but kept the erroneous plot device that it would have been a horrendous scandal for the white public at that time to find out about the slaughter of the Indians. Fact was, they knew, and they applauded it. (Kind of like what’s going on over in Pakistan . . . ) This was not revisionist fiction, either, just a simple romance novel.