(no subject)
Jan. 13th, 2010 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaThis is the worst job of professional copyediting I have ever seen.
I understand spell-check errors. I can tolerate "silting" for "sitting," I guess, and I can rescue the meaning when "for" is substituted for "floor." I wince, but I see how it happens.
But then there are the errors that make the author look stupid. Please do not have a character adjust her "economically perfect desk chair," because you will jolt me right out of the story. And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD do not have a bunch of college-educated professionals who work with language for a living as newspaper reporters and columnists keep using the construction "suppose to."
Somewhere in the dimly-lit corners of Cornell University, a bust of William Strunk, Jr. has tears trickling down its dusty face.
Updated to add: ZOMG someone just ordered "trench fries."
I understand spell-check errors. I can tolerate "silting" for "sitting," I guess, and I can rescue the meaning when "for" is substituted for "floor." I wince, but I see how it happens.
But then there are the errors that make the author look stupid. Please do not have a character adjust her "economically perfect desk chair," because you will jolt me right out of the story. And FOR THE LOVE OF GOD do not have a bunch of college-educated professionals who work with language for a living as newspaper reporters and columnists keep using the construction "suppose to."
Somewhere in the dimly-lit corners of Cornell University, a bust of William Strunk, Jr. has tears trickling down its dusty face.
Updated to add: ZOMG someone just ordered "trench fries."
no subject
Date: 2010-01-13 05:39 pm (UTC)There's a lot of poorly or not-at-all copyedited and proofread stuff out there, and the copyeditors (or absence thereof) are blamed even when the fault is in no sense theirs. Along with the writers who will think "oh, right, Marianas, why was I so obsessed with dinner that chapter?" or just notice the fix and okay it, there will be one who has the error that firmly in their brain.