{"id":2061,"date":"2007-01-02T13:30:04","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T19:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/book\/year-end\/"},"modified":"2007-01-09T16:07:58","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T22:07:58","slug":"year-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/book\/year-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Year End"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finished proofing PDFs for my Vista book at 5:47pm on New Year’s Eve. In one of the final chapters, a figure had been dropped and I hadn’t noticed until someone put it back with this caption, “Add caption and location.” I spent 20 minutes figuring out where the original citation was, the caption and whether I really wanted the figure back. It was not an important figure, but leaving it out would have required renumbering all the rest.<\/p>\n

In the last chapter, a table had been “corrupted” (jargon for screwed up); hopefully, we’ll get that squared away. The whole book is off to the printer this week. <\/p>\n

At the New Year’s Eve party, our hostess expressed surprise that I was content with a beer to celebrate the end of the task. It’s still sinking in and I won’t really celebrate until I have the book in my hands.<\/p>\n

I’ll leave you with the last samples of my encounter with the most diligent proofreader. I don’t think he is wrong in all of these but may have exceeded his assignment with some. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wrote:
\nThe blue text under the major headings in Figure 7-1 ….<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\nwill text be printed blue in book?<\/p>\n

[mjh: How about: “The text under the major headings in Figure 7-1, which will be blue on your screen though black on this page…”?]<\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote:
\nThe problem will be separating the wheat from the chaff.<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\nto separate<\/p>\n

I titled a chapter:
\nSetup Programs<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\ntitle OK? sounds like it deals with programs named Setup … “Setting Up Programs” better?<\/p>\n

[mjh: maybe so. Of course, setting up programs — setting programs up? — often involves a program named Setup. Moreover, the DE, TE, PE and CE<\/a> didn’t suggest changing the title — or, as far as the proofer knows, each one of them did and that was rejected 4 times already.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote:
\nRSS support may bring millions of new users to that method of digesting Web content.<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\ncorrect word? “consuming” better?<\/p>\n

[mjh: see Reader’s Consumption for more fun with words.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote:
\nMany of the Security settings offer a choice among Enable (less safe?), Disable (more strict) and Prompt.<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\nbetween<\/p>\n

I wrote:
\nClick the red circular button.<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\nbetter: circular red<\/p>\n

[mjh: what, no comma?]<\/em><\/p>\n

I wrote:
\nThe Now Playing screen can be used to display the album cover for the current tune, or various visualizations (this is your CPU on acid.).<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\ndrug ref OK?<\/p>\n

I wrote:
\npresently … prior<\/p>\n

Proofer wrote:
\ncurrently … previous<\/p>\n

The next morning, Mer awoke to say the proofer’s choice of “circular red” was more poetic. Maybe so, but is that really the reason for that suggestion — poetry?<\/p>\n

We had an interesting time researching the subtleties of between\/among. Even though between<\/em> may actually have application with more than two, I think among<\/em> is the right choice in this context. <\/p>\n

Mind you, I had no quarrel with the majority of the proofer’s suggested changes, though he is an obsessive comma-inserter. I would work with this proofer again — he was relentless. As for the copy editor, her name is no longer in the credits; perhaps she washed her hands of me. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finished proofing PDFs for my Vista book at 5:47pm on New Year’s Eve. In one of the final chapters, a figure had been dropped and I hadn’t noticed until someone put it back with this caption, “Add caption and location.” I spent 20 minutes figuring out where the original citation was, the caption and … Continue reading Year End<\/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-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061","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=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}