I think I once got a press release from this guy.
I haven’t gotten to the point of working with editors yet; God knows what will happen to my fiction if I ever get it published.
This makes me kind of sad. When I was a kid, I thought the EB was pretty close to the Word of God. We had the 1968 edition, which came with a facsimile of the original 1768 edition. I spent a lot of hours just randomly looking through the encyclopedia, and developed a real loyalty to the EB. I hope they don’t have articles with terrible errors made by over-aggressive editors.
Check out Piers Anthony’s “But What of Earth?” to see just how bad editors can mutilate a book. Anthony wrote this crappy novel a lotta years ago, only to have it go through a shredder in which at least three different editors shite all over the book. They suggested changes that contradicted each other, insulted the author, I think even gave the book to someone else to rewrite, then published the mess.
Anthony kicked up such a shitstorm that he got the manuscript back, saw the edits, then got his revenge by publishing the manuscript, suggested edits included, and overlaid his commentary on top of this mess. A fascinating document.
Kimstu, I can sympathize, although I didn’t have nearly as bad a problem with the editors at Oxford. I contributed several essays to their biography series, and their comments were erudite and accurate. It was educational to work so hard on a profile and have it come back with emendations on every friggin’ line, right down to spelling errors I thought I had caught! It was an embarrassing lesson.
Eh…is EB Online different from the print version? I had thought that the online (and CD) articles are just pulled from the books, no? Or is the policy now to update online content before they make it into print?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t EB notorious for using dated articles, out-of-fact data, and material of that ilk?
A fellow reporter used to have a little joke posted on his wall:
Two men – one of them an editor – are flying across the Sahara but crash and are stranded in the middle of the desert. They crawl out of the wreckage and begin walking toward civilization.
Day after day, they stagger along under the blazing sun, growing weaker by the hour. They are parched. They thirst like never before for the cool clean taste of water.
Then suddenly they spot an oasis! They run as fast as their weak legs can carry them toward the blessed water.
But when they reach it, the editor unzips his fly and begins pissing in the water.
“What on earth are you doing?” asks his stunned companion.
“I’m fixing it,” replied the editor.
I think the opposite of ‘helicopter’ is “green M&M”. So it’s said that Van Halen used to have a clause in their contract that stated that “M&M would be provided, but no green M&Ms”(or words to that effect). While some people thought that was going a bit too far, even for a rock band, David Lee Roth said it was to make sure that someone read the entire contract. If he saw green M&Ms in a bowl backstage, he’d start sending the techies out to double check everything, and usually found many major problems. Apparently, Van Halen had one of the largest touring sets around, and there were weight and stress limits the venue had to accomodate. If Great White had a “green M&M” in their contract, then maybe The Station fire could have been averted.
I’ll look for the cite for David Lee Roth and green M&Ms. I think it’s on Snopes someplace.
Urban legend has it that Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural employees made a practice of putting porches on each of their house designs, just so Wright could delete them and leave the rest alone.
You know what would be cool? If Kimstu used the helicopter advice for his next article, but took it literally.
“Whatshisname, a native of Region B, was an instrumental creator in the early days of Development X after 300 CE and a crucial figure in the history of Blankblank. He also invented the helicopter.”
Kimstu: wow, have I been there! In one research paper I wrote, I mentioned the role of the British in dam and railway construction projects in India in 1949.
My editor wrote back, “Ahem: India gained independence in 1947.” And she underlined “1947” several times.
Right… Every single British engineer and laborer just packed up and left, johnny on the spot on Independence Day…
(She also didn’t know what an oscilloscope was. Now, hey, that’s okay: that’s ordinary honest ignorance. There are lots of tools that I wouldn’t know by name. But she didn’t even bother to look the word up in a dictionary! She just marked the word with a big question mark and a note, “What is this?”)
It’s taking longer than we thought…
Trinopus
At my work (military), the half the folks are boat drivers and half are helicopter pilots. There is rivalry. This quote is going on my door. Heck, I might just print up some T-shirts.
kdeus
I’ve been there, Kimstu, and I empathize, although World Book didn’t mangle my article as badly as you’re describing EB.
I did have a couple of helicopters survive, including a hilarious one in the disclaimer on the title page of one of my books. I assumed the editor would substitute the publishing house’s standard disclaimer, but he apparently left mine intact without looking at it. He never noticed that right in the middle of the standard “this information is believed correct…” verbiage, it said, “This book is not recommended for use as a hangover cure. Possible side effects of using this book include blurry eyes, confusion, and dizziness. No baby harp seals were harmed in the production of this book. The typesetting and word processing for this book was done using all recycled electrons.”
What’s even worse than having an editor mangle your work is what newspaper reporters seem to do so often to direct quotes. I did a lot of work with my children’s 4-H group, including teaching them woodworking for three years. I was interviewed by a reporter who substituted the word “carpenter” for “woodworker” throughout the article, including direct quotes. If she didn’t know the difference, she should have asked rather than changing it.
See, this is what I like about the Internet and especially the SDMB. The chances I’d ever run into someone with the credentials to write for the EB, much let get into a conversation with them about crappy editors, is slim-to-none (well, maybe not SLIM – I do work at a university). My point is, I never would’ve come across this conversation had it not been for the cool and facinating people who post to SDMB. I just learn so much from ya’ll!
Okay, back to lurk-mode.
Patty, who likes the “helicopter” concept.
Message to Cecil
Dear Cecil,
I´d suggest you bookmark and/or save this thread for future reference when in 15 or 20 years a doper comes with the question of where the term "smack a helicopter" originated.
Yours faithfully,
Ale
Not only do you get to meet people, but that is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while. Well, right up there with
If gratuitous silliness floats your boat (as it does mine) check out my friend’s website
Screenwriters used to use “helicopters” to get past the censors, too. In a Mae West movie, for instance, they’d have her say something flat-out obscene for the censors to cluck over and cut, and that way they’d sneak the otherwise shocking double-entrendes through.
I write for the Encyclopeida Americana, and I’ve been lucky—my editor there is really good and uses a light hand.
That’s, ummm, “Encyclopedia,” of course.
Now that’s what editors are for…
A similar approach to the helicopter is the “fake pitch”, which we used when I worked in an advertising agency for our extremely irritating Creative Director. You do two pitches.
One of them you sweat buckets on for days and nights, and get the tenor, tone and creative theme absolutely perfect.
The other one you write on the back of an old envelope on the way into his office (metaphorically - these days I guess you just do a shitty powerpoint).
Present pitch #2. CD hums and haws, and says “can’t you make it more… you know? A little bit… hmm?”. You say “I guess you’re right. We’ll come back with something else in a few hours.” Go back to desk, twiddle thumbs, then return with the first pitch. Eureka! “That’s it!” he screams, clapping his hands. “You see, I told you there was something not quite… you know? about the first one.”
And since he’s already done the great big creative piece of direction, the less likely he is to micromanage, and therefore fuck up, the finished project.