Caring About Every Comma
Recently, I wrote a post about journalist Gene Weingarten’s comment on writers who care enough to agonize over every word (“Caring About Every Word”). Are those writers obsessive? Maybe. But they’re also likely to mature into very skilled writers.
I think something similar is true for editors. When you care enough to agonize over every comma, you’re on your way to becoming a skilled editor. When you turn to your style guide to settle some simple matter, even though you’ve dealt with that matter a thousand times before and you’re 99.99% sure you already know the answer, you’re well on your way. When you sit up in bed at night and scream, “Oh my God! I need to fix the second footnote on page 286!” you’re well, well on your way.*
Obsessive? Maybe. But editors tend to be obsessive, in the nicest sort of way. That’s why writers love/hate us.
*But when you’re a freelancer who actually gets up at 2:00 a.m. just to fix that footnote, you probably need professional help.
5 Things Your Editor Needs to Know
Often I receive queries or see online job postings that include only minimal information about what the writer actually needs. Queries like “How much to edit my 100-page book?” are not unusual. They are, however, difficult to answer accurately.
Including the following five specific bits of information in your query or job post will help editors give you an accurate and fair price quote.
1. Word count. This is much more informative than a page count. Even if everyone used double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman (which they don’t), the word count on documents with identical page counts could vary widely based on the “density” of the writing. Lots of long paragraphs = higher word count. Lots of short dialogue = lower word count.
2. Project type and subject matter. Because editing a dissertation on economics is not the same as editing a children’s book about puppies.
3. What you want the editor to do. Do you need someone to run through your manuscript quickly to check for minor errors, or do you need a more thorough edit?
4. The style you need. This is especially important in academic writing or if you’re writing for a specific publication. Each style (Chicago, AMA, AP, APA, MLA…) has its own quirks, and you want to be sure you’re hiring an editor who is familiar with those quirks. (If you’re a creative writer and don’t need your manuscript to meet specific style guidelines, you can skip this one.)
5. Time frame. When will you deliver the manuscript to be edited and how soon do you need it back? If you absolutely need a quick turnaround, state that up front.
Affect vs. Effect
These two words are very commonly confused, and while there are many accurate online explanations of the distinctions between them, most of those explanations only tell part of the story. The part that is most often told goes like this:
Affect is a verb meaning “to produce an effect on.” Effect is a noun meaning, generally, “result.” So, the price of cookies affects how many cookies I buy, and the effect of rising cookie prices is fewer cookies in my pantry.
So far so good, and that explanation goes deep enough for most common usage, but English is rarely so simple.
Affect as a verb can also mean “to make a display of liking or using” or “to put on a pretense of.” She affected indifference although her feelings were deeply hurt.
Affect (stress on the first syllable) can also be a noun meaning “the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes” or “a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion.” The patient displayed a completely emotionless affect.
Effect is also commonly used as a verb meaning “to cause to come into being” or “to bring about.” As governor, he effected statewide change.
There is still more to the story, if you include nuances like obsolete and other less common meanings, but I think this is enough confusion for one day.
(Definitions from The Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)
The Lofty Origins of Slapstick
I don’t know why we enjoy watching other people pretend to beat each other up for a laugh, but we do. Sure, some of us claim to be too intelligent and cultured to find any value in such cheap theatrical antics—at least that’s what we say in public (secretly, though, we just added a stack of Abbott & Costello and Three Stooges classics to our Netflix queue).
That kind of face-slapping, eye-poking physical comedy is known as slapstick, and apparently it’s been around since the beginnings of theater. In Greco-Roman times, padded clowns would take the stage and beat each other. Hilarious. In the commedia dell’arte of sixteenth-century Italy, the stock character Harlequin wielded a paddle made of two wooden slats. Whenever Harlequin paddled someone (preferably on the posterior), the slats met and produced an impressive whacking sound. Hilarious again. In the late nineteenth century, American vaudeville performers were still whacking each other with those paddles. They called the paddles slapsticks, and soon the term was being used to refer to the type of physical comedy that made audiences roar and critics roll their eyes.
True hilarity never dies. Excuse me, I just need to go move something to the top of my queue now.…
(Source: The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories.)
Oop’s! London Borough Decides It’s Cheaper to Be Wrong
It must have seemed like a good idea at the time: Place some nice posters in bus stops to promote local schools. Brag a little about how those schools are some of the best in the country.
Unfortunately, Barnet, the North London borough responsible for the posters, forgot to hire an editor and the posters were printed with the following message: “Our school’s are amongst the top performing in the country.”
Awkward wording, misused apostrophe … but fixing the posters now would be expensive, and so there they hang, proudly proclaiming the schools’ apparent intention to turn out yet another crop of English speakers who think plurals are formed by adding apostrophe + s.
Can you hear me weeping?
Caring About Every Word
Several weeks ago, I heard Washington Post journalist and funnyman Gene Weingarten on the radio* talking about journalism, comic strips, and other things. At one point, speaking about writing, Weingarten said something like this: “If you care enough to agonize over every word, you will be a good writer.”
I think that’s true. Over the years, I’ve certainly read enough slapdash work in various contexts to know that the opposite is true: If you don’t care about every word, you will not be a good writer.
Good writing doesn’t magically appear from nothing. Even very talented writers can end up writing nothing but goop if they don’t do the work of getting their words right. That fact reminds me of something a college literature instructor once told our class. More than twenty years later, I can still hear her velvet-smooth Kentucky voice as she said slowly and very seriously, emphasizing every word: “Writing. Is. Hard. Work.”
Yes, it is. But it’s worthwhile work.
*I think this was on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Also, I believe Weingarten was paraphrasing something someone had once said to him, but I wouldn’t swear to that either.
Quidditch for Muggles
Admit it, Harry Potter fans, you secretly (or maybe not so secretly) dream of flying around on a broomstick. You long to wear the cool wizarding robes to work and whip out your magic wand to cast a spell on that annoying prat in the next cubicle. You wish you had a house elf to clean your bathroom. And no matter how old you are, in your deepest fantasy, you are an international quidditch star.
As it turns out, that last bit may not be so far-fetched.
I did not know this until today, but quidditch teams have been popping up on college campuses in recent years. Some of the more serious players are even trying to get quidditch approved as an official NCAA sport. Oh, and the 2010 Quidditch World Cup is happening this weekend in New York. Will Middlebury College win their fourth World Cup in a row? I don’t know, Texas A&M looks strong this year.…
Alas, some aspects of the game are still too fantastic for real-world muggles. The muggle players don’t actually fly on their brooms. They run around holding the broom between their legs. This looks a little silly at first—no, wait … it looks silly, period. But once you get past the broom thing, quidditch starts to look like a real, if somewhat chaotic, sport. It beats the heck outta baseball.
Has any other real sport had its origins in a novel? Not that I know of. If you happen to know of any such sports, please tell me.
In the meantime, I’m envisioning myself drinking a pint of butterbeer while I watch the big quidditch match. Monday Night Quidditch, anyone?
Dear Editor: Don’t Be a Rude Idiot
What’s with all the rude behavior going on online? I’ve come to expect a certain number of snarky, mean-spirited comments on popular sites, but lately I’ve been noticing rudeness in some comments made by alleged editing professionals on freelance job sites. A few examples:
In the public question/discussion area of one editing job posted on Elance, an editor more or less suggested the job would be a waste of any real editor’s time and the poster should either rethink the budget or look on Craigslist for some crappy nonprofessional who would edit for peanuts. (Of course I’m paraphrasing here, but I think my version actually sounds less rude than the original.)
Another editing job on the same site was posted by a graduate student’s thesis advisor. The student was not a native English speaker, had a small budget, and needed some help editing her paper. In the job’s public question/discussion area, one editor demanded to know why the advisor wasn’t editing the paper. The editor wrote, and I swear I’m not making this up, “Why don’t u do ur job?” Again, the biggest issue seemed to be the small budget available for the job.
Yet another editing job with a small budget was posted on Craigslist recently, and one person responded publicly to tell the poster that their job and its budget were “insulting.” Certainly no real editor would work for such a small amount of money.
Look, I know that some jobs have ridiculously small budgets. If a certain job isn’t right for you or insults your professional standards, don’t bid on it. That really is all you need to do. There’s no need to try to make the writer look stupid or stingy. In fact, when you reply so rudely and unprofessionally in a public forum, you only succeed in making yourself look like an idiot.
Holly Mackerel!
Some spelling mistakes are more distracting than others. A couple of weeks ago, I was reading an online article in which the writer meant “holy mackerel” but actually wrote “holly mackerel.” I stopped reading at that point. Sure, adding one extra letter is easy to do; that’s a forgivable mistake that I’m sure we’ve all made. (On a bit of a side note, writing “Holly Bible” repeatedly is somewhat less forgivable.) Unfortunately, I was so amused by the mental image of a fish wearing a festive Christmas wreath that I lost interest in whatever the article was about.
Am I easily distracted? Maybe, but so are lots of other readers. If you want readers to stick around to read what you wrote, watch out for silly little mistakes that might distract them. Yes, spelling matters.
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