In an episode of the Gerry Anderson classic “UFO,” (possibly “Timelash”), Vladek Sheybal says that they had managed to “expend a moment in time,” in which I think he was supposed to say “extend.”
Why does this happen? A case study.
The writer turns in a manuscript to the editor. Even if the work was originally sent in electronically, a large stack of physical paper is needed.
The editor asked questions and makes corrections, either by writing between the double-spaced lines or adding sticky notes or both.
The writer responds, accepting some changes, making others, answering some questions, adding new material, changing more.
The result goes to the editor, who accepts or rejects the changes, making more notes, and sends it to a copyreader. Most publishers can no longer afford to keep a staff of in-house copyeditors, so free-lancers of varying capabilities do the work, some of whom understand house style thoroughly and some of who don’t know much of anything.
The usually enraged writer sees the havoc done to the prose and cancels the changes (or stets the original) and tries to set things right.
The editor sends the scribbled upon mess to the art director, who inserts even more corrections so that fonts and dropped letters and leading and bars and fancy stuff can be inserted and sends it to the printer, who makes up galley pages as best as one can.
Off these go to the writer, who - bleary-eyed and bored from reading over the same book now for the sixth or seventh time - tries to find as many of the mistakes as humanly possible.
The printer then corrects these, one hopes, and adds no new ones, one hopes, and sends back an uncorrected proof to the writer who must go over the prose letter by letter yet again.
Then it is out of the writer’s hands and into the printer’s. Is this the same printer who has been over the book before and knows what to look for? Doubtful. Highly unlikely.
But printed it is, and off to the stores it goes, and on page 339 someone finds “should” misprinted as “9hould”.
And the writer weeps.