Proofreading - a dying art?
james.beckman
Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more? Last
Saturday afternoon I was reading one of the current class of
military-action novels, written by a Tom Clancy wannabe. The
title isn't important, but it was a hardcover, published by
John I. Fine, Inc., I think.
I was rolling along through the last hundred pages or so, where
the action really heats up, and having a great time. The
author's writing isn't the very best, but it's good enough for
the purpose, and wasn't getting in the way of the story. But
every so often I'd stumble across a typo. And I really mean
stumble. It's like cruising down a smooth street and suddenly
hitting an unseen pothole. For instance, one sentence used the
word "village" when "vehicle" was clearly intended. The word
"village" had been used in the previous sentence. It only took
me a few moments to figure out what the problem was, but it
produced a real interruption in my enjoyment of the story. I
hate it when that happens!
I've noticed this in several books lately, and I begin to suspect
that the text has been proofread by computer, but never by a
human being. Is this the case? Does anyone know what the current
proofreading practice is? The errors that are brothering me are
usually words that are spilled correctly but are just not the
rite words. (See what I mean?) I might tolerate this more in
cheap paperbacks, but it seems really beyond excuse in an
expensive hardcover.
BTW, one place where I have *never* caught such an error is
_The New Yorker_ magazine. Occasionally I think I have tripped
across one, but after backing up and reading carefully I find
that it is a glitch in my own comprehension, not a fault in the
text.
Jim Beckman AT&T, Middletown, NJ att!mtqub!jeb
Evelyn C. Leeper
> Here's my latest complaint: Lousy (or no) proofreading!
I've noticed this too, and commented on it in several reviews. I think
it's connected to the decline in the education system. This is why my
mother at age 75 (sorry, Mom, I didn't know it was a secret) is still
employed one day a week by her local weekly newspaper--she's the only
one they can find who can proof-read. I hate to think what it will
look like when she retires.
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | att!mtgzy!ecl or e...@mtgzy.att.com
--
"I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense,
reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use." --Galileo
timothy.a.carlson
>
>Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more? Last
>
>
>I've noticed this in several books lately, and I begin to suspect
>that the text has been proofread by computer, but never by a
>human being. Is this the case? Does anyone know what the current
>proofreading practice is? The errors that are brothering me are
>usually words that are spilled correctly but are just not the
>rite words. (See what I mean?) I might tolerate this more in
>cheap paperbacks, but it seems really beyond excuse in an
>expensive hardcover.
>
I have a Modern Library edition of Les Miserables that seems to
have a typo every ten pages or so. Very irritating. Is this
common in Modern Library editions?
- Tim
Scott Horne
<
<This is why my
<mother at age 75 (sorry, Mom, I didn't know it was a secret) is still
<employed one day a week by her local weekly newspaper--she's the only
<one they can find who can proof-read. I hate to think what it will
<look like when she retires.
It'll look like the _Florence [South Carolina] Morning News_....
--Scott
--
Scott Horne ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
ho...@cs.Yale.edu SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520
203 436-1848 Residence: Rm 1848 Silliman College, New Haven, CT
Hong2jun1 bu2 pa4 yuan3 zheng1 nan2, wan4 shui3 qian1 shan1 zhi3 deng3 xian2.
Matthew P Wiener
>Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more? Last
>Saturday afternoon I was reading one of the current class of
>military-action novels, written by a Tom Clancy wannabe. The
>title isn't important, but it was a hardcover, published by
>John I. Fine, Inc., I think.
It's gotten worse. Much worse. Not only proof-reading, but basic
editing tasks in general seem to have slipped by the by. THE NEW
REPUBLIC had an ugly little article on this, I think last summer.
>I've noticed this in several books lately, and I begin to suspect
>that the text has been proofread by computer, but never by a
>human being.
A truly abominable proof reading job can be seen in CNN's book on
the Soviet coup. Sentence parts repeat themselves or disappear or
worse.
>BTW, one place where I have *never* caught such an error is
>_The New Yorker_ magazine.
Their factchecking/proofreading was once legendary, although some slips
have happened. It's such a shame that Fleischmann sold out. I can't
bring myself to looking at the new NEW YORKER anymore.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)
salte...@darwin.ntu.edu.au
> Here's my latest complaint: Lousy (or no) proofreading!
>
> Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more?
You probably just notice it more. There has always been some rotten
proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
since it manages to misspell its own name.
Linden
--
Linden Salter-Duke email: SALTE...@DARWIN.NTU.EDU.AU
Northern Territory University
Darwin, Australia Snail: Box 40146, Casuarina, NT 0811
Jack Campin
> There has always been some rotten
> proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
> of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
> since it manages to misspell its own name.
This is somewhat out of date. "Private Eye" labelled the Guardian this way
when it really did deserve it; but the paper switched over to computerized
technology a few years ago and dramatically improved its proofreading. It's
now better proofread than most British papers (perhaps the Independent is
better still).
--
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Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland 041 339 8855 x6854 work 041 556 1878 home
JANET: ja...@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk BANG!net: via mcsun and ukc FAX: 041 330 4913
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Ian P. Gent
>There has always been some rotten
>proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
>of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
>since it manages to misspell its own name.
It is indeed known as the Grauniad in our family, just as the Radio
Times is known as the Raddy Ottimays in the spirit of Nosmo King.
What I want to know is, has the Guardian *really* ever misprinted it's name
as the "Grauniad"? Or is it just an urban legend? Of course if it is
true, it is verifiable: one just looks up a library collection for the
appropriate date. Anyone know?
Ian Gent
Dave Jones 253-1987
>proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
>of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
>since it manages to misspell its own name.
>
>Linden
This is utterly unrelated to books, but a journalist friend of mine
told me that the Grauniad's problems were related to its unusual
printing practices. Seems that some newspapers (pre-electronic
revolution) employed sub-editors whose job it was to check the
"stone", the object which contained the type created by the linotype
operator. They were able to correct errors introduced at the
linotype stage by simply removing and replacing type. The "stone"
is used to create the master plate used to do the actual printing,
so its a positive imprint and can be read unaided (I think).
Anyway, the Guardian did not do this, hence the occasional lapse
with lines out of order, mispronts etc. On this account, the
satirical magazine Private Eye labelled the paper the 'Grauniad',
with occasional use of 'Ugnadiar' and other manglings.
To my knowledge, only one other paper got similar treatment from PE,
and I'll leave you to guess which one got called the 'Daily Getsworse'.
--
| Dave Jones (d...@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com) --------------------------|
| Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY 14653-7300 |
| C++ will do for C what Algol-68 did for Algol! -----------------|
Jim Hori
the reference books division about proofreading. Turns out
he started at HBJ as a proofreader, but now he says it is
mostly farmed out to freelancers.
His impression is a first run is made by a spellchecker, then
subsequent runs by a human since the spellchecker catches/misses
a middling percentage of mistakes.
I've been wondering about this since I found what seemed to
my delicate sensibilities to be a couple of glaring mistakes
in Leslie Marmon Silko's "Almanac of the Dead". By the way, he
says that HBJ gets many letters about mistakes and that they
are taken seriously, with subsequent editions incorporating
fixes suggested in the these letters from the public.
....
jimh
Shelley Wilmoth
>Asked a friend who works at Harcourt Brace as an editor in
>the reference books division about proofreading. Turns out
>he started at HBJ as a proofreader, but now he says it is
>mostly farmed out to freelancers.
>
>says that HBJ gets many letters about mistakes and that they
>are taken seriously, with subsequent editions incorporating
>fixes suggested in the these letters from the public.
>
In the case of hardbound books, seems like a publisher should
offer to replace bad releases with corrected ones.
Shelley Wilmoth
Jonathan Delatizky
>In article <1992Jan28.1...@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, j...@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (james.beckman) writes:
>> Here's my latest complaint: Lousy (or no) proofreading!
>>
>> Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more?
>You probably just notice it more. There has always been some rotten
>proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
>of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
>since it manages to misspell its own name.
Unfortunately this is no longer the case. The Grauniad has
improved its proofreading considerably since the 60s and
70s, when it became infamous. Even Private Eye no longer
routinely refers to it that way.
--
Jonathan Delatizky * Bolt Beranek & Newman * If you mention Rimbaud in Bel
dela...@bbn.com * 10 Moulton Street * Air it is assumed you're
{...}!bbn!delatizky * Cambridge MA 02138 * talking about Sylvester
+1 617 873 3366 * FAX: +1 617 873 2205 * Stallone - Peter Mayle
Bob Ingria
There has always been some rotten
proofreading around: one of the most famous is "The Guardian" newspaper,
of Manchester & London, which is known to its readers as "The Grauniad",
since it manages to misspell its own name.
Thanks. I had thought this was a lost classical epic poem, and was
about to start a rare-book search for it.
-30-
Bob
``Arma virumque drano...''
Scott Horne
<In article <1992Jan28.1...@cbnewsj.cb.att.com>, jeb@cbnewsj (james.beckman) writes:
<
<A truly abominable proof reading job can be seen in CNN's book on
<the Soviet coup.
You mean to tell me that you actually bothered to read that rubbish?
--Scott
--
Scott Horne ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
ho...@cs.Yale.edu SnailMail: Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520
203 436-1848 Residence: Rm 1848 Silliman College, New Haven, CT
Jin3jin3 wo4zhu4 Hong2jun1 de shou3, qin1ren2 he2shi2 fan3 gu4xiang1?
Kathleen Much
>Has this gotten worse lately, or do I just notice it more?
It has been bad for some time, but may be getting worse. Last night I
found a couple of dreadful errors in a book I'm reading published
1853, but A.S. Byatt's _Possession_ had scads--one main character's
name flopped from Michell to Mitchell over and over again, for
instance.
>I've noticed this in several books lately, and I begin to suspect
>that the text has been proofread by computer, but never by a
>human being. Is this the case? Does anyone know what the current
>proofreading practice is? The errors that are brothering me are
>usually words that are spilled correctly but are just not the
>rite words. (See what I mean?) I might tolerate this more in
>cheap paperbacks, but it seems really beyond excuse in an
>expensive hardcover.
Big publishers pay next to nothing for copyediting and even less for
proofreading. Books may get a quick run-through if they are lucky. The
typical copyeditor is a half-educated grad student or recent English
B.A. who can't get a job in journalism (grumble, grumble. I used to
hire them, and that's who applied.).
More texts are being electronically typeset, which does allow for
spell-checking but doesn't guarantee it. Conscientious authors
sometimes catch a lot of errors in galleys, but many of them don't
notice typos, and of course they don't catch the errors of fact
because they thought they were correct in the first place. Not long
ago, a high school history text referred to the Korean War ending when
the U.S. "dropped the bomb". That's not a proofreading error.
I too find sloppy copyediting inexcusable in expensive books. But in a
cheap mystery paperback I just chuckle at the flambeaux wedged into
"scones" on the wall (at least 3 times in Ellis Peters's _Virgin in
the Ice_).
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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CASBS, 202 Junipero Serra Blvd. |Phone: (415) 321-2052
Stanford, CA 94305 |Fax: (415) 321-1192
Matthew P Wiener
><A truly abominable proof reading job can be seen in CNN's book on
><the Soviet coup.
>You mean to tell me that you actually bothered to read that rubbish?
Yes. I was trapped in a bathroom with nothing else.
Charles Packer
>because they thought they were correct in the first place. Not long
>ago, a high school history text referred to the Korean War ending when
>the U.S. "dropped the bomb". That's not a proofreading error.
Errors like that are so unbelievable that somebody should
do a study of them that would include interviewing the
authors to determine their mental state at the time
they wrote them.
But as far as simple typos go, as a newspaper reader
I don't see them as that much of an irritant. In fact, they can
be a fascinating source of clues about writing and editing
processes.
Many typos that I've seen in newspapers, for example, suggest
that a lot of copy is transcribed from dictation. An instance:
Several years ago the NY Times issued a correction for a story
about Israeli politics, saying a story should have referred
to a " 'veteran' member of Parliament (not Bedouin)."
A small-town newspaper published a half-page story about
my mother with 11 occurrences of her name spelled correctly
as "Packer" and four as "Packard." From their distribution
I was able to conclude that three different people had
worked on the story.
Rheal Nadeau
> ><A truly abominable proof reading job can be seen in CNN's book on
> ><the Soviet coup.
>
> >You mean to tell me that you actually bothered to read that rubbish?
>
Boy, that takes ALL the pleasure out of a good crap, doesn't it?
:-)
Proofreading errors that bug me:
- the book reviews in the local paper (The Ottawa Citizen) consistently
confuse "principle" and "principal", among other errors. Now,
you'd think the book reviewers would know the English language
a bit better than that! (What's more. book reviews should be
better proofread than the news stories, since they aren't under
the same time constraints; instead, it's the other way around.)
- a story in Runner's World this month quotes a runner as saying that
something or other "peaked my interest". I'm sure the runner meant
"piqued", myself... (The only time interest peaks is when I'm
renewing my mortgage...)
--
The Rhealist (Rheal Nadeau) | Bell-Northern Research
Internet: nad...@bnr.ca | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
BNR neither endorses nor censors my views | (613) 763-4266
Tom Maddox
Cocteau (I originally wrote "Cockteau" haha) said, or so I've heard,
that lapses in continuity are the poetry of film; maybe the same can (if only
occasionally) be true of proofreading errors in books. It all depends on
the context.
As Matthew Wiener noted in a "review" of my _Halo_, according to the
back cover, Wm. Gibson seems to have invented the word "comtemporary" (and
there are, of course, other lapses in the actual text, though not nearly so
many as a major blunder on the *fucking cover for Christ's sake* would lead
you to expect).
On a far more exalted note, such errors are present in great number
in _Ulysses_ and _Finnegan's [just kidding with the apostrophe, Godwin; wanted
to see if you were paying attention] Wake_; indeed, a rather huge and unseemly
quarrel has taken place over the procedures used by those who put forth a
new supposedly more accurate text of _Ulysses_, this quarrel being
complicated to the point of madness by the facts that there is no authoritative
ms. of the book and no edition that Joyce saw through the press--and, of
course, by the fact that the idea of proofreading either book is alarming.
As a writer, I find that the appearance in the text of insignificant
typos (e.g., "tyops") isn't all that bad in small number. However, homophone
errors (principal/principle, to/too/two, etc.) I can't abide. Fortunately,
I almost never commit them myself (will all the gods who rule over such
matters please forget I said that?) and have not found that copy editors or
printers introduce them.
--
Tom Maddox
tma...@milton.u.washington.edu
"Writing is reading and reading is writing."
A. S. Byatt
Charles Packer
> a bit better than that! (What's more. book reviews should be
> better proofread than the news stories, since they aren't under
> the same time constraints; instead, it's the other way around.)
This suggests the following "conspiracy" theory: The smart
editors have been enlisted in a project to write the news in
advance. The deadwood are consigned to writing book reviews.
Mike Godwin
> As Matthew Wiener noted in a "review" of my _Halo_, according to the
>back cover, Wm. Gibson seems to have invented the word "comtemporary" (and
>there are, of course, other lapses in the actual text, though not nearly so
>many as a major blunder on the *fucking cover for Christ's sake* would lead
>you to expect).
I suppose the cover artist must have read the book, but for the life of me
cannot explain the artist's error on the cover of HALO. How'd it happen,
Tom?
--Mike
--
Mike Godwin, |"For Books are not absolutely dead things, but do
mnem...@eff.org | contain a potency of life in them to be as active
(617) 864-0665 | as that soul whose progeny they are...."
EFF, Cambridge | --John Milton
Paul Chen
> I poured over the proof for typos, my wife
> poured over the proof, my friends poured
> over it. I was certain that my job hung in
> the balance. -- Robert Wyatt in the Nashville
> Tennessean.
their witticism:
> It does.
Ian P. Gent
sentence with a wonderful typo. I don't have the quote but it was
approximately...
In a democracy it is always possible for voters to use their unfluence to...
How wonderful! I thought, and still do, that the word "unfluence"
should go into the language immediately as a precise expression of an
individual voter's power.
I wrote to the paper to paper to point this out and got a nice letter
back from them saying that the only benefit of proofreading errors was
the humour with which readers point out said errors.
Incidentally, this is _The Times_ of London of course: it has no need to
be designated by city. _The New York Times_ seems to be an astonishing
publisher of errors: today's regular "Corrections" column contains six
paragraphs. My favourite recent howler was in a description of the draw
for the (Soccer) World Cup. Again approximately...
The twelve South American nations are divided into two groups of seven and six.
Ian Gent
Ian P. Gent
>My favourite recent howler [in _The New York Times_]
>was in a description of the draw for the (Soccer) World Cup.
When I posted this I approximated the text from memory. I've dug it out
again now, so here it is exactly.
"Nine South American teams will be divided into two groups,
one of five and one of six."
The New York Times, Sunday December 8, 1991.
Page 4 of Sports Section, under headline "Nations Lining Up for the Big Drawing"
Ian Gent
Matthew P Wiener
>_The New York Times_ seems to be an astonishing publisher of errors:
>today's regular "Corrections" column contains six paragraphs.
Some months back, they had a rather dumb book-related correction, revealing
that Thomas Pynchon wrote THE CRYING OF LOT 49. I couldn't find the original.
Roger Lustig
>In article <1992Feb7.2...@tc.cornell.edu>, ipg@msiadmin (Ian P. Gent) writes:
>>_The New York Times_ seems to be an astonishing publisher of errors:
>>today's regular "Corrections" column contains six paragraphs.
>
>Some months back, they had a rather dumb book-related correction, revealing
>that Thomas Pynchon wrote THE CRYING OF LOT 49. I couldn't find the original.
>--
The all-timer, of course, was the one that ran something like this, and
I'm glad I'm not the one who had to type it:
"On p. xx of yymmdd's NYT, an object in a photograph was identified as
the sun. It is the moon."
Roger
Matt Austern
> In article <1992Feb7.2...@tc.cornell.edu>, ipg@msiadmin (Ian P. Gent) writes:
> >_The New York Times_ seems to be an astonishing publisher of errors:
> >today's regular "Corrections" column contains six paragraphs.
>
> Some months back, they had a rather dumb book-related correction,
> revealing that Thomas Pynchon wrote THE CRYING OF LOT 49. I
> couldn't find the original.
The Times has the policy, when they print a correction, of not telling
you what the error was. This makes the erratum much less useful, but
also, when you try to guess the error, much more entertaining.
--
Matthew Austern I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band of
(415) 644-2618 of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
ma...@physics.berkeley.edu taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
aus...@theorm.lbl.gov multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
aus...@lbl.bitnet me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
Tom Maddox
>I suppose the cover artist must have read the book, but for the life of me
>cannot explain the artist's error on the cover of HALO. How'd it happen,
>Tom?
You are referring to the four-spoked wheel, I suppose (which is said
in the text to be six-spoked)?
Nobody noticed. Including me (if I could say that in *very small*
type, I would). Truth to tell, I'm not all that angry about it. Four, six--
so who's counting?
The cover's real troubles were these:
The version that got printed was the next-to-last proof (which had
already changed considerably from the only one I saw before it went into
print); the one that was approved and was supposed to be printed (a) fixed
the Gibson typo, (b) had a different little VR bubble on the spine, and (c)
had a quote from another pre-pub review to accompany the Gibson quote. That
cover languishes in some alternate reality.
Meanwhile, Tor somehow never got the B. Sterling quote (or the
Proper Authorities didn't, at any rate), which should have been on that
very same cover (the English edition has it, and a quite nice one it is--
both cover and quote).
I won't even go into the Case of the Publicity Person Who Quit in the
Middle of the Process and So Fucked Things Up Pretty Good, Really.
Publishing is not an exact science.
frank.g.neves
>
> Some months back, they had a rather dumb book-related correction, revealing
> that Thomas Pynchon wrote THE CRYING OF LOT 49. I couldn't find the original.
> --
Since the discussion concerns proofreading, I thought I would add my two cents.
While getting my cup of coffee this morning in the cafeteria, I couldn't
help but notice that the lunch menu whiteboard featured "Manhatan clam chouder",
and "Fried Flownder".
Frank
--
*************************************************************************
Frank G. Neves, R.Hy. | "Immanetize the Eschaton..."
Discl: No wife, no horse, no moustache | "Credo Quia Absurdum"
*************************************************************************
Matthew P Wiener
>The all-timer, of course, was the one that ran something like this [...]:
>"On p. xx of yymmdd's NYT, an object in a photograph was identified as
>the sun. It is the moon."
NYT's policy is to usually not repeat the error, lest it be propagated more.
Roger Lustig
>>The all-timer, of course, was the one that ran something like this [...]:
>
>>"On p. xx of yymmdd's NYT, an object in a photograph was identified as
>>the sun. It is the moon."
>
>NYT's policy is to usually not repeat the error, lest it be propagated more.
>--
days.
Roger
Matthew P Wiener
>>>"On p. xx of yymmdd's NYT, an object in a photograph was identified as
>>>the sun. It is the moon."
>>NYT's policy is to usually not repeat the error, lest it be propagated more.
>Well, I for one am glad they made the exception. I was reeling for days.
"On p xx of yymmdd's NYT, due to an editing error, the big round thing in
the sky, to the left of the tree, was misidentified in the caption. The
object is actually the moon. The NYT regrets any confusion."
Todd Nemet
>
>But as far as simple typos go, as a newspaper reader
>I don't see them as that much of an irritant. In fact, they can
>be a fascinating source of clues about writing and editing
>processes.
>
That reminds me of a Jon Carroll article from
about a year ago. He reprinted a retraction from
a Boston newspaper that said something to the
effect that the article should have said "The Mass.
budget should be back in the black" instead of
"back in the African-American."
Jon Carroll then made the excellent point that
the search-and-replace key is not a toy.
Todd Nemet
Keith Arnaud
"Correction" he wrote : "In yesterday's article on milk production horses
should read cows throughout."
-Keith
jim
>>the U.S. "dropped the bomb". That's not a proofreading error.
>
>that a lot of copy is transcribed from dictation. An instance:
How about: "General McFarlane arrived at
the conference tall, dignified
and uninformed."
Note the extra 'n' in the last word.
Jim
Duncan Langford
>
>That reminds me of a Jon Carroll article....
>
>Todd Nemet
And THAT reminds me of the apocryphal local English newspaper which
ran an apology along the lines of 'we referred to the 'defective branch
of the police force'. This should of course have read 'detective branch
of the police farce'. I've seen this quoted in a UK anthology as true,
but perhaps it was a misprnt...
- duncan
Lori Cole
Assaults upon our Language:
"Our paper carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a
defective on the police force. This was a typographical error. Mr.
Hoffnagle is, of course, a detective on the police farce."
Lori Cole
Joann Zimmerman
>In article <1992Feb7.0...@milton.u.washington.edu> tma...@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox) writes:
>> As Matthew Wiener noted in a "review" of my _Halo_, according to the
>>back cover, Wm. Gibson seems to have invented the word "comtemporary" (and
>>there are, of course, other lapses in the actual text [...]
The part I never could figure out was the extremely curious
typesetting bug (presumably computer-related) which surfaced at
non-intervals. If a paragraph began at the top of the page, then the
entire line got moved over about 1 em to the left - leaving a strange
little blank space on the right margin. Yours is the only book I've
ever seen with anything like this. Virtual typesetting?
--
"If you are not confused, you have not been paying attention."
-- Dave McNeely
...!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf!jzimm
Roger Lustig
>In article <1992Feb7.1...@eff.org> mnem...@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>>In article <1992Feb7.0...@milton.u.washington.edu> tma...@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox) writes:
>>> As Matthew Wiener noted in a "review" of my _Halo_, according to the
>>>back cover, Wm. Gibson seems to have invented the word "comtemporary" (and
>>>there are, of course, other lapses in the actual text [...]
>The part I never could figure out was the extremely curious
>typesetting bug (presumably computer-related) which surfaced at
>non-intervals. If a paragraph began at the top of the page, then the
>entire line got moved over about 1 em to the left - leaving a strange
>little blank space on the right margin. Yours is the only book I've
>ever seen with anything like this. Virtual typesetting?
It happens, believe me.
I did a translation a few years ago, for U of Chicago Press. They asked
for my WordPerfect 5.0 files; but didn't tell me that they were doing
that particular conversion for the first time.
U-umlauts *sometimes* came out as double a's.
Page breaks *sometimes* came out as l's, joining two words.
I thought I'd caught all the glitches; but there were about 20 I didn't
get. The reviewer in Music and Letters (who hated the book *and* my
translation) was kind enough to mention several of them.
I'm still finding them; at least the paperback fixes some of the
original errors.
Roger
Laura Johnson
>That reminds me of a Jon Carroll article from
>about a year ago. He reprinted a retraction from
>a Boston newspaper that said something to the
>effect that the article should have said "The Mass.
>budget should be back in the black" instead of
>"back in the African-American."
>Jon Carroll then made the excellent point that
>the search-and-replace key is not a toy.
>Todd Nemet
----------
That made my day ... Thanks Todd.
-LJ.
Mark Brader
> The all-timer, of course, was the one that ran something like this ...
> "On p. xx of yymmdd's NYT, an object in a photograph was identified as
> the sun. It is the moon."
Then there's the editorial they ran in, oh, maybe around 1929, chastising
Robert Goddard. Goddard was developing the first practical liquid-fueled
rockets, with the intention of working up to designs large enough for
space research. The Times editorial said that if Goddard thought a
rocket would work in a vacuum then "he only seems to lack the knowledge
ladled out daily in high schools".
The correction notice appeared during the Apollo program, about 1969!
It's supposed to have read: "It is now definitely established that a
rocket can function in a vacuum. The Times regrets the error."
(Quotes from memory, may not be verbatim but are close.)
--
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com
MARTIANS BUILD TWO IMMENSE CANALS IN TWO YEARS.
Vast Engineering Works Accomplished in an Incredibly Short Time by Our
Planetary Neighbors. -- N.Y.Times headline, August 27, 1911
This article is in the public domain.
Charles Packer
reveals how journalism operates. The caption was obviously written
by an editor who had the photograph in front of him, but no
further information, and there must not have been any clues
elsewhere in the picture as to how much light was being cast on
the scene.
Apparently, it's the editor's responsibility to write captions,
and, apparently, they are often confronted with photos that are
supposed to go with a story, but whose connection hasn't been
made clear to them.
A year or so ago, I posted remarks about a photo of a man sitting
at a cafe table with a telephone on the barren ice of Anarctica.
The picture accompanied an article in the NY TImes Magazine about
pollution at the South Pole. The man was holding the handset of
the phone and seemed to be inspecting the coiled cord. The caption
said "In an astronomy experiment at the South Pole, a scientist
transmits information to a nearby base." After writing to the
photographer and locating (via Usenet) somebody who was present
when the picture was taken, I determined that the phone was used
during =assembly= of a telescope, and the picture itself was a
joke -- inspection of the photo reveals that the line cord
disappears into the snow.
Mark Taranto
> Then there's the editorial they ran in, oh, maybe around 1929, chastising
> Robert Goddard. Goddard was developing the first practical liquid-fueled
> rockets, with the intention of working up to designs large enough for
> space research. The Times editorial said that if Goddard thought a
> rocket would work in a vacuum then "he only seems to lack the knowledge
> ladled out daily in high schools".
> The correction notice appeared during the Apollo program, about 1969!
> It's supposed to have read: "It is now definitely established that a
> rocket can function in a vacuum. The Times regrets the error."
The retraction was printed after the first take-off from the moon. It
was carried in newspapers across the nation, and mentioned on TV.
Speaking of proofreaders -- my recent spelling errors make me think that
I ought to hire one. This thread makes me think that I ought to get
a job as one.
Mark
mat...@oread.cc.ukans.edu
> In article <1992Feb4.2...@casbs.Stanford.EDU>, kath...@casbs.Stanford.EDU (Kathleen Much) writes...
Makes sense. I agree with you.
Tom Maddox
>The part I never could figure out was the extremely curious
>typesetting bug (presumably computer-related) which surfaced at
>non-intervals. If a paragraph began at the top of the page, then the
>entire line got moved over about 1 em to the left - leaving a strange
>little blank space on the right margin. Yours is the only book I've
>ever seen with anything like this. Virtual typesetting?
Got me. I'd have read it ten zillion times without noticing it,
I think. It occurs to me it's just as well I'm not in the visual arts.
Or, to put it another way: boy are you eagle-eyed.