Who edits the copy editors?
Media/journalism junkie Doug Campbell shares ten “nitpicks” taken from the last three issues of Copyediting newsletter, including the four above. He writes:
The strain of achieving perfection for an eagle-eyed audience of one’s peers must be enormous. After all, what excuse can there be for a misspelled word or misplaced apostrophe when you run a publication called Copyediting? Yet, as terrible as it is, there’s something ridiculously satisfying about spotting a typo in an article devoted to the most efficient ways to catch typos.
* Who edits the copy editors? (The Awl) || Copyediting.com
Earlier on JimRomenesko.com:
* Blogger points out copyediting errors and gets hired
* The lonely life of the lowly copy editor
* “My first day as a copy editor was a shock”
For the past several years, I have been on a personal crusade I called “the Warren and Jimmy Buffett spell the name with two ‘t’s adventure.” I’ve seen Warren Buffett’s name spelled Buffet in major magazines (including the New Yorker), the N.Y. Times and of course on the AP wire.
I’ve watched PowerPoint presentations from economic development types with “Warren Buffet” quoted, and I joked that the “Buffet Rule” the president is always talking about must be the one about “take all you can eat, but eat all you take,” or “no shoving at the salad bar.”
The poor man and his musical cousin are doomed to have their last names misspelled everywhere, always and forever. But so long as I’m around, I’ll make sure that any copy that flashes before my eyes is right.
These kinds of mistakes are what happen when you get rid of copy editors.