{"id":2041,"date":"2006-12-11T15:58:41","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T21:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/book\/proof\/"},"modified":"2006-12-11T16:13:11","modified_gmt":"2006-12-11T22:13:11","slug":"proof","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/book\/proof\/","title":{"rendered":"Proof"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you may know, I’m writing a book<\/a> on Microsoft Windows Vista, the next version of the operating system. You may also recall that I wrote about my encounters with a very aggressive Copy Editor who can’t believe English is my first language (or read about that<\/a>, if you don’t recall).<\/p>\n

This week, I saw a draft of the book cover. I am now going through Adobe Acrobat PDF files, looking at the text and figures as they are laid out for printing. It finally looks like a book and seems more real than ever.<\/p>\n

These files contain comments from a proof reader (could be one word or hyphenated — I’m not the guy to tell you). Many of the proofreader’s comments have been spot on, to the point of catching extra or missing spaces and more.<\/p>\n

One thing that frustrates me is the proof-reader “correcting” something that has been “corrected” several times already. For example, I prefer to write “websites.” However, from the beginning in this book, I have written “Web sites” and that has stood the scrutiny of the DE, TE, PE and CE. Now, the proofReader suggests “websites.” So, I have to argue against a change I approve of because it would have to be made 1000 times (insert comma, if you like — I don’t like a comma in 1000). Sure, search and replace (capitalized? italics? quotes?) makes that easy, but why are we discussing this at the bitter end?<\/p>\n

Having been through the wringer with the CE, I thought I might be too calloused to care any more, but I do note a few of the PR’s comments here:<\/p>\n

I wrote: The joke at the turn of the century is \u201cThe whole world is in beta.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes: Are we still at “the turn of the century”?<\/p>\n

Later, he notes: Is there maybe too much complaining in this procedure? move remarks into a sidebar?<\/p>\n

I wrote: pronounce it like a Klingon<\/p>\n

He notes: really sounds like that?<\/p>\n

I wrote: Have your notary click the OK button and initial here (X ____) and here (X ____).<\/p>\n

He notes: humor here OK?<\/p>\n

I think that centuries turn slowly, like ocean liners. Maybe that’s because I am more than half a century old, myself, or that when I studied the turn of the 1900s it seemed to last more than a few years. As for the Klingon remark, the real joke is that the text referred to would not be pronounced at all, but spelled out (like FBI, not AWOL). Finally, I do not advertise myself as a comedian, or even a humorist; I do think a bit of levity lightens dull topics.<\/p>\n

At this point, I would pay to see the ProofReader and the Copy Editor fight to the death. Humor here OK?<\/em> mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you may know, I’m writing a book on Microsoft Windows Vista, the next version of the operating system. You may also recall that I wrote about my encounters with a very aggressive Copy Editor who can’t believe English is my first language (or read about that, if you don’t recall). This week, I saw … Continue reading Proof<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}