Copy Edit versus the Cat

Nov 14, 2010 20:30


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Comments 14

cathshaffer November 15 2010, 02:03:06 UTC
Historical Thesaurus of the OED??? Oh, magical book, where have you been all my life?

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merriehaskell November 15 2010, 02:51:46 UTC
They just finished it last year. And it's PE 1591 .H57 2009 in the reference room at the Grad. But if you're sweet to me, I will totally look stuff up for you.

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cathshaffer November 15 2010, 02:54:17 UTC
Mmmmmmm...historical thesaurus of the OED...*drool*

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cathshaffer November 15 2010, 02:09:38 UTC
By the way, my philosophy on copy editing: copy editors are my friend. In most of my work, I'm not even offered a chance to review the copy edit, but when I am, I accept all changes unless they seriously affect the meaning of the sentence. (And that does sometimes happen, though usually when that happens it's the editor, not the copy editor.)

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merriehaskell November 15 2010, 02:46:04 UTC
Oh, the copyeditor is MOST DEFINITELY my friend. That's why this is all "versus the copy edit" and not "versus the copy editor."

Actually, my book had an in-house copyeditor and a freelance one, and they have both won my trust, admiration, and undying gratitude.

That said, there are points where the absolutely correct thing to do impedes the thing I was trying to achieve. Fiction is so different from non-fiction. I don't, for example, want perfect diction from my uneducated servant class.

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cathshaffer November 15 2010, 02:51:17 UTC
Oh, no wonder this is such a P.I.T.A. for you. They should know better than to "correct" the dialogue. That sucks. Actually, I have another friend that has had quite a bit of trouble with a copy editor trying to "correct" the technical jargon in her technical articles written for a technical audience.

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merriehaskell November 15 2010, 02:56:50 UTC
I'll disagree there, because I think they're making sure that my choices are deliberate. That's the whole point, I think--they don't know what was in my brain, and they want to make absolutely sure that if I want it correct, it can be correct. I'm pretty sure they're doing their jobs and doing them well, and that it's not expected in fiction that all the edits will be accepted (or rejected).

Plus, some things are issues of style, and that's always worth arguing about. ;)

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mrgeddylee November 15 2010, 03:57:03 UTC
Maybe it's just my loathing for cats, but it looks to me like Merlin is about to devour the camera.

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merriehaskell November 15 2010, 04:03:21 UTC
I know! I love it. Cats mid-yawn are hilarious.

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mmuenzler November 15 2010, 04:41:27 UTC

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