Some of us have been victims of editorial terrorism. This is when you send off your perfect masterpiece to some editor in Indiana and it comes back full of cryptic markings in a foreign language. The only thing you know for sure is that the editor didn't like your manuscript.
Well, it turns out those scratchings actually mean something. They're called
Proofreader's Marks. Who woulda thunk?
Well, uhhh, anyone who worked in the production and correction of published manuscripts ought to have known about them. They're universal, more or less, so if you mark them on a galley proof or page proof, you can be sure that they will be correctly interpreted (assuming you correctly interpreted them in the first place) and the right corrections made.
ReplyDeleteTypically, editors do not use them for editorial revisions, but for revisions of style, such as using God's Own, sorry, Australian spellings instead of the Devil's, I mean, American spellings, or putting the commas inside or outside the quote marks, etc.
My eyes tend to glaze over whenever I see something from an "editor." But I was kidding about my ignorance. I've seen enough of these scratchings to know what they mean. They usually mean that the "editor" has a different opinion about things than I do.
ReplyDeleteOne of the differences has to do with the correct (Canadian) spelling of words. Apparently, there are several "editors" out there who use a non-standard English dictionary published in Boston, New York, or some other city in the former British colonies.
For a wonderfully informative and entertaining, but high-volume, torrent of discussion on matters of English usage (meaning, finer points of grammar, idiom, and the like), try the Copy-editing List.
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