Skip to main content
Blog

What’s an Editor to Do?

By October 6, 20142 Comments
As I write this, I just finished reading a blog posted by someone who claims to be an editor. While her blog information makes sense, I found two blatant errors that are driving me crazy. What’s a fellow editor to do?

My initial reaction was to write to the originator and tell her that because of the way she used the word “insure,” it should have been spelled e-n-s-u-r-e. Insure means to cover something financially. Ensure means to make sure something happens. I wanted to add that she had spelled the word “acknowledgment” the British way, with the extra e: “acknowledgement.” In America, we must spell it “acknowledgment,” without the e between the g and the m. Spell checker programs won’t catch and fix either of those errors; it takes the eye and mind of a skilled editor to catch those things. I would hope that someone who calls herself an editor would catch them in her own work, though.

My ego wanted to rise up and prove to her that I’m a better editor than she is, but such impudence could lead to major conflict and resentment. I’m sure that in this small world, such an attitude would come back to hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt her, either. 

I have always had difficulty reading anything with errors in it. My editor’s heart goes into spasm over every typo, dangling modifier, wrong word choice, and punctuation error. It has almost ruined my ability to enjoy reading contemporary novels or even a newspaper, especially now that few publishers have in-house editors and more errors than ever sneak into print.
 

What’s an editor to do when a person claiming to be an editor makes egregious errors in a blog post on the Internet? Unfortunately nothing, but I can vent to fellow writers, as I have done today. Thank you for listening, and oh, thank you for overlooking any of my own errors. I am, after all, only human. Oh, why then do I expect other editors to be super human? Down, ego! Down!

Bobbie Christmas

Editor Bobbie Christmas is your book doctor. She can also be your mentor, ghostwriter, copywriter, and writing and publishing consultant. After spending decades writing and editing for a living, Bobbie became a much-sought-after seminar and workshop leader. She began Zebra Communications in 1992 in Atlanta, Georgia, to provide professional editing services to publishers and to writers like you.

2 Comments

  • CabinWriter says:

    I've had the same difficulty when I read friends' books, a well-known author, or someone my age. I remember reading at the end of a book the author stating that the errors are his and don't write his editor about this subject. That let me know others beside me were editing as they read.

  • CabinWriter says:

    I have a question. So many newspaper and magazine writers begin an article with "It" as in "It was an amazing day." I learned that "it" is an antecedent and should not begin a sentence. I'm requiring my students in Writing Family Stories to avoid beginning a story this way. What is your opinion?

Leave a Reply