EDITING MISTAKES BY THE PRO's

EDITING FOR SELF PUBLISHERS

No, this isn’t an article on how to do it. It’s that you shouldn’t take it so bad when you make a mistake because even the professionals make mistakes. Consider the following newspaper examples:

Well of course she was because it would be really annoying to be dead hours before you die.

And another:

It certainly looks like she came home and caught him getting it. But perhaps she went to this school:

Or perhaps he’s a footballer and there’s medical justification.

The again, perhaps this is all related to another sporting story.

The use of slang terminology, or to me more exact, the failure to recognise some of the alternative meanings found in slang terminology, can cause embarrassment all round.

So let's look at a few more.

Who would have known?

Finding weapons in a gun shop, what a surprise!

Personally I would have thought teen pregnancy would drop off after the age of twenty, but what do I know.

Now this has to be a clever trick. A clear example of where circumstances turn a perfectly acceptable statement into one a good copy editor should pick up and change.

Here again, you would have thought that someone who has been done to death would be only too willing to talk to the police and tell them, who done it. For the life of me I don’t know why they don’t.

Perhaps they’re using this as an excuse. Fancy remaining dead when the police need all the help they can get.

Perhaps the obstable of illiteracy has something to do with it. I really think those self-publishing face enough obstacles when self editing without adding obstables as well.

Getting risqué again.

Perhaps this has something to do with the lection result. And as for a certain golfing hero.

Perhaps this is due to certain revelations about his personal life.

All in all, editing any manuscript is a thankless task, but that involves 50,000 – 100,000 words or more. What we have here is a sample of large print headline cockups made by the professionals who, all too often, try to put down those working hard at self-publishing, especially when we miss a mistake or too. So don’t feel so bad. They screw up too.