Proofs
The proofs of Book of Ed entered the house today. It was quite annoying to find that, after both I and the copy-editor had been through the damn thing with a fine-toothed comb, somebody has made the decision to re-key it, introducing a whole new level of error. One blooper is worthy of posterity I think: I have footnoted the text with things I darkly suspect most people no longer know, such as, for instance, obsolete coinage. The result, re-keyed, was in one case, this:
Pictures were priced in Guiness — that is, units of £1 1s.
It does at least suggest that the note was necessary in the first place … and mind you, Ed being Ed, and not exactly worldly, one wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he was getting people to pay him in Guinness.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Janey, I am STAGGERED by your sang froid!
In your place I would be crawling up the walls and howling! I would be gnashing my teeth! I would be pronouncing anathemas and chanting the cursing psalm! I would be hunting down the excommunication quoted in Tristram Shandy and shouting it from the rooftop!
No fate is too bad for people who re-key things. May their beds and kitchens and bathrooms AND ABOVE ALL THEIR COMPUTERS be infested with ineradicable Twisbies!
I think you must be a saint. Infinite sympathy!
July 27th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the sympathy — it’s the re-keying AFTER COPY EDITING that really adds that special touch.