Where are the editors?

At first I thought it was you that made the error (before I saw the AP info underneath :)

I think that might be correct, but I’m just guessing. Like how you would say: “Watch out for crossing persons.”

…he talks to a children…?

Maybe they’re using it as a collective term, like a herd… nah, probably not. I hate seeing such obvious mistakes too.

It really bothers me when people make mistakes on published items. I have difficulty respecting the source, whether it be a news organization or a major company. I realize that you are entitled to errors, but someone should proofread before it’s distributed to the general public.

My attempts to cultivate immunity so I can go through an ordinary day without cringing to the point of nonstop convulsions have been only partially successful. I consider it a success if I can turn the page or close the thread (and I do) and just move on without firing off a response. Marking the package, book, box, or poster in red ink used to satisfy a certain craving, but I don’t really want Sharpie marks all over my computer screen. Sometimes I can’t help myself and shriek aloud.

What seems worst to me, even worse than gaffes by pros (who are usually working to deadline—and to tell you the truth, this looks like an editing error to me! somebody made a change from singular to plural and forgot to take out the author’s article), is ordinary errors by ordinary people like us who should have learned better by the age of 10: to/too/two, there/their/they’re, our/are, and so on. Those are painful reminders that the effects of basic education on the general population are far below where they were a few decades ago. I worry less about the writerly elite who are rushing their copy out and who do have editors, colleagues, and a literate audience to deliver a chastening gibe as needed.

@Jeruba Eloquently put, as always.

Such an error is probably a typo (or is otherwise unattributable to ignorance of grammar) so it doesn’t bother me. I’m only amused and I enjoy seeing things like this.

What really bothers me is going to the supermarket and seeing “10 items or less” emblazoned on the signage over the first several checkout lines.

Much to my chagrin I have re-read old posts of mine in which I committed solecisms I would execrate if I found them in someone else’s post.

I may still cringe, but I have quit making remarks. I am not, alas, without sin.

To answer your actual question, the editors may well have been laid off because they don’t actually produce anything and are therefore expendable.

Psst, @NewZen: paragraph 3, word 12.

Psst, @NewZen: paragraph 3, word 8 also.

I’m glad this question was asked. I’m starting to feel like a literary “snob” or “elite” when I find these errors and comment about them to those around me. It’s like literacy is no longer fashionable.

All I would ask from the published world, for the love of the next generation of readers, is that the standard for grammar be at least minimal. Bring back the editors!

We must raise our standards! No more lazy sentences without periods, commas and other punctuation to guide us. No more switching “which” with “that”, “whom” with “who”, singular for plural…breathing heavily

@NewZen: If you’re going to look at word 8, better also look at word 4. Also, the semicolon should be a comma.

@Siren, it’s not so much that it isn’t fashionable as that most people are not well enough educated to tell the difference, and when people can’t tell the difference, they assume that it doesn’t matter or that there isn’t one. People don’t value what they are incapable of perceiving.

Many people who admire strength, prowess, and superior performance on, say, the field of athletics or the musical stage are quick to belittle people who apply the same high standards to other areas of accomplishment. And so people whose strengths are more intellectual than otherwise tend to be intimidated by the prevailing view and to apologize for knowing the difference and having the temerity to mention it. Correcting people’s grammar is never going to make you beloved—unless the person you correct is a capable writer who knows he is going to look better after a good edit, just as your living room is going to look better after a thorough dusting and vacuuming. A poor writer blames you if you find the dirt, as if you had been the one to put it there.

But, as I say, editorial services are no longer valued as they once were. An editor does not produce anything and instead slows down the process of content delivery. In the current climate, a conscientious editor is a liability. I hope this is less true in the publishing world itself than in other sectors where written material is created, but I don’t know.

[An editorial career of thirty years is speaking here.]

I have a good friend who is an editor at Putnam Penguin. He (friend and not penguin) says that no one does line-by-line editing any more because of budget constraints.

The errors that bother me most are those I see on restaurant menus, commercial signage and the like. Things companies have paid good money for, and have presumably passed through many hands before final printing. If I can spot the error in a second flat, how is it that nobody else did so before it was printed?

@NewZen Um.. “site”? I think you meant “sight”. Which highlights the obvious response to your question: we’re all human, and make mistakes from time to time. You caught an editor’s, I caught yours.. somebody will catch me in one before too long, no doubt.

(Or maybe you actually did mean you can’t stand the site of those errors, i.e. the newspaper. Dunno.)

@jasonjackson, that is what I was pointing to in paragraph 3, word 12.

@Jeruba Yep, you saw it first. Good catch. :)

@nxknxk I think of that too, every time I see “less” used when “fewer” would be correct. It bothered me for a long time, until one day I sort of realized out of the blue that it really doesn’t benefit the English language much, if at all, to draw that distinction. So it stopped annoying me, and things like to/too, lose/loose, they’re/their/there bother me a lot more now.

Oh, and @Likeradar just reminded me that I complain bitterly about inappropriate or missing punctuation, “inappropriate quotation marks”, and suchlike. Which is true, I detest that.

So anyway, I guess my point is that I agree with your sentiment, and the general idea that language has a proper form which should be respected – but I now fine myself on the other side of that specific example. (I feel the same about “who” and “whom”, too..)

@jasonjackson

I wasn’t aware that our private frustrations with the misuse of the language were meant to benefit it.

The distinctions are for our benefit, not for the language’s. The language does whatever it wants, changes whenever it wants. It’s fickle like that. All we can do is try to get a better hold on it.

Hence the distinctions.

@jasonjackson Site, as in website. ;-)

I bid you all a good nite.

Thanks for your replies.

@nxknxk: I disagree. I think the “evolution of language” explanation is just a cop-out, an excuse to be lazy and continue to disregard good grammar practice — and publish bad copy.

@augustlan: I’ve been in a similar industry for some time myself and I can tell you, I’m one of those people who proof-read copy before it gets printed or published online. It would mortify me if a project I was working on was found to have a grammatical error. I have worked with professionals who are just trying to meet their deadline and don’t care much for these errors. It’s disheartening to see this attitude so widespread.

@NewZen: Good night to you too also. Nice question.

@Siren:t would mortify me if a project I was working on was found to have a grammatical error.

That’s an interesting sentence. Why use “was” rather than “were” just after “project”? I like the second “was” because it seems to be right to use the indicatave there rather than subjunctive. This mini-usage has always interested me. If I were Queen of the world, I would have a court editor as well as a jester.

@Siren

I don’t disregard the practice of good grammar. And If others use it as a cop-out then they are only taking advantage of a truth. Yet I doubt publishers are citing the evolution of language as a reason to ignore the need for copy editing.

And anyway I was only saying an individual or even a group of people – prescriptive grammarians, e.g. – are largely helpless against the natural changes or mutations a language undergoes.

A language does not belong to you or to me. The distinctions we make would, if upheld indefinitely, only shorten the life or inhibit the versatility of a language. At least that’s what I think.

@gailcalled, not speaking for @Siren, but for myself, I would use “was” there too because this clause is not conditional and contrary to fact. It’s a relative clause amplifying “project” (“a project that I was working on”). But I would expect to see a “were” in the second instance, which is the verb that goes with the “if”:

It would mortify me if a project I was working on were found to have a grammatical error.

Where shall I send my resume, Your Majesty?

Side, but weirdly connected to grammar (?): what is the babby and frizzer, and jail sell run?

@NewZen, are you asking for enlightenment on those fluther memes? If so, look here.

Did you mean “side”—or “sighed”?

@Jeruba When I see you, I always mean “sighed.” * sigh *

@gailcalled: “Was” is correct. Please recheck your editing. The noun is “a project”, singular. The verb is “was”, singular. If I had written “projects” you would have seen me write “were”.

I mean, how can “the project I was working on were found to be….” make any sense? Who talks like that?

…If the project I was working on were found to be. does make sense grammatically. The “if” changes it into a conditional sentence.

If (a project I was working on <subject>) were (object) blab blab.

You’ll note that I said the usages were interesting and used other conditions words (“seems”): I was doing no editing.

Sorry, I still disagree. I think we need to take this to a high court. ;) Thank heavens there isn’t a high court for this

@Siren; Take it up with Jeruba and her 30 years of professional experience. I am an interested amateur. Were that I was not.

I think knowledge and experience are two completely different things.

Only sometimes. Would I want an editor of thirty years’ experience or an English major in college to edit my magnum opus?

@gailcalled You tell me.

That’s rhetorical, man.

O the poor fate of the future subjunctive. Would it were not so, &c.

If my paper were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.
If my published paper were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.
If the paper that I had published were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.
If the paper that I was working on were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.
If the project that I was working on were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.

The project has been canceled.
The project that I was working on has been canceled.
The project that I was working on was found to have a grammatical error and has been canceled.
If the project that I was working on had been canceled, I would be out of a job now.
If the project that I am working on were canceled, I would start looking for a new job.
If the project that I was working on were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.
If the project that I am working on were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.

If I were a boy…

@gailcalled: Depends who’s smarter. Could have an editor of 30 years getting by with the worst grammar and a bright new sponge absorbing everything. I don’t think age = wisdom either. Just me though because some people never learn.

@Jeruba: There’s an error in there somewhere.

Here’s one:
If my published paper were found to have a grammatical error, I would be mortified.

If my published paper was found to have a grammatical error—and it does— I am mortified.

I’m sorry, @Siren, I can’t make sense of your comment. Are you suggesting that you think the second sentence is correct?

Yes

“And it does”? “Was,” I think.

The construction you want there is “Because my paper was found to have a grammatical error, I am mortified.” Nothing conditional about it. The meaning of “if” can’t be bent as far as that.

Just being witty Jeruba. But I see you understood my point.

@Siren: Sadly for all of us, only @Jeruba can be witty Jeruba.

@gailcalled: Hopefully that’s only your opinion. Because it would be a sad world indeed if only one individual was considered witty.

Now please remember, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That goes for wit, intelligence and other admirable traits we covet.

@Siren: My point is not that there is only one original and witty flutherer, but that Jeruba is sui generis. and therefore, inimitable. (My point was really that there should have been a comma: witty, Jeruba.)

I’m glad you felt compelled to support your friend, as Jeruba obviously is to you. However, please note again that this site is pretty dynamic, not static, and as such hopefully people come and go, some less witty, some more. Having said this, again, it truly is in the eye of the beholder to who(m) each of us finds witty online and in real life. Having said this, I’m sure I was tickled pink on some occasion by some comment Jeruba may have made on a post. I can’t be sure, but to appease you I will give it the benefit of the doubt. Then again, I’ve been tickled pink by comments many people have made on this site. Which is why I keep coming back to read other posts.

Otherwise, I would subscribe only to comments made by Jeruba.

So please, don’t speak for all of us.

@Siren: Arrgh. “Just being witty Jeruba.” has an entirely different meaning than “Just being witty, Jeruba.”

@gailcalled: I hoist the white flag. How about I offer you a coffee and we forget this ridiculous thread? ;)

(I mean, our part of it)