Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> writes on 22 April 2004 at 14:56:58 -0700 > --- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > > Andrew Jones <chaosasj at bellsouth.net> writes: > > > > > Philip Hart wrote: > > > > > >> > > >> Isn't it "typos"? > > > > > Yes, yes it is. It also begs the question: Why didn't the editor pick > > > up the typos? > > > > Same reason as for any other book; plus some extra for the complexity > > of Paarfi's prose. I don't recall that I've ever read a book without > > noticing a few typos. > > I didn't see a single typo in _Illumination_, by Terry McGarry. > Of course she's a copyeditor. Steven's copyeditor sometimes. I'm sure there *are* some out there, and even more that I might not *notice* anything wrong in some particular day just reading. I'm using tht as a benchmark, though; if I notice errors in casual reading regularly, there have got to be a LOT more than that actually out there. > I proofread a 300-page science book in a few days one time--and I > didn't notice a few typos. The one I remember is that one of our > authors was listed as the discoverer of the human "teleomere". I > don't think he was too please. (I mean "pleased".) I was glancing over an artist's proof of a $500 hand-made art book the other day and spotted a word salad ("typo" being pretty tied to an actual error of hitting the wrong key in my head; this was the result of attempting an editing change and stopping part way through, with inconsistent words in the sentence). Luckily for this production method, the *next* copy can lack this error. > Finding the last typo is like reaching absolute zero, but I'd still > like it if publishers would spend a few extra days and maybe a few > extra hundred dollars for a nice leisurely edit. What, they can't > afford it? They'd rather give it to the author? Actually, a few hundred dollars is significant compared to the size of a lot of book publishing projects even from mainstream publishers. What bugs me is that even the top-line authors don't get the extra attention. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b at dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Photos: <dd-b.lighthunters.net> Snapshots: <www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>