Quotes from work

[pooka]

Eleemosynary would make a great baby name.

[rivka]

Well it is the US Government... They can make up any word they want, right?

And apparently travel back in time. Dictionary.com had it as a word of the day in 2003.

Eleemosynary would make a great baby name.

[Porter]

As a general rule, I'm against making up new names for babies.

[pooka]

Spacepook stopped calling the baby Cedar ever since the ultrasound.  Now it's "the baby".

[dkw]

I already knew the word "eleemosynary", but I don't remember why I know it. 

[Jonathon]

Word-of-the-day calendar? That's probably the only reason why anybody knows that word.

[rivka]

Well, SOMEONE at the Department knew the bloody thing!

Probably some lawyer.

[Annie Subjunctive]

One time my design partner gave me a word of the day calendar for Christmas. So I faithfully read it out loud to her and our coworkers every day. One day the word was noblesse oblige, which I'd never heard, in English OR French, until that day. The very net day I listened to a book on tape by Neal A. Maxwell, and guess what word he used.

The moral is, sometimes a word of the day calendar might save your life. (Like, if, instead of a Neal A. Maxwell book on tape it had been the safety instructions on a 747 and I was sitting in an exit row.)

[rivka]

I'd love to see the safety instructions that used "noblesse oblige".

[dkw]

Not terribly likely -- the only way I've been exposed to word of the day calendars is when my mom emails me a particularly interesting one or if I happen to check an online dictionary that day that has it in their banner or sidebar.  It probably showed up in something weird I read 20 years ago and just stuck.  My mental filing cabinet has a very large "useless minutia" section.

[pooka]

Noblesse Oblige dictates that economy class be evacuated ahead of first class due to the lack of legroom.

[rivka]

I didn't mean that I couldn't think of an appropriate context. I meant, I'd love to see the snooty airline that printed up such instructions, and what they looked like.

Also, I decided to skim the regs. A friend gave me the tip to search for the string "changes:", plus some sections are of more interest than others. And I literally LOL'd at this:

Comment: One commenter noted that
most Pell-eligible applicants would not
benefit from the IRS Data Retrieval
Process since they are not required to
file a Federal tax return because they do
not earn enough. Therefore, this
commenter argued that these applicants
and the institutions that serve them
would not experience the reduction in
burden the IRS Data Retrieval Process is
expected to provide.
Discussion: The commenter is correct.
Changes: None.

[Jonathon]

My coworkers are all puzzled about this sentence, and I'm puzzled about their puzzlement. It's from a book about Latter-day Saints in Germany before and during World War II.

Under a government that convinced or compelled more and more of its citizens to march to the same dark tune, members of a church that exalted the concept of freedom of choice (moral agency) were bound to feel at odds with the party line.

They're apparently all hung up over the "march to the same dark tune bit" because they're confusing or conflating it with "march to the beat of a different drummer", which means rather the opposite of what is meant here. They even had issues with the word "dark", though I have no idea why. I'm having a hard time seeing how this sentence's meaning is anything but readily apparent. I'm rather bewildered that five different people, two of whom are copy editors, could read it and be so baffled by it. One of them even said that it was such a terrible sentence that it should be run over by a bus. I think they all need to read a lot more.

[BlackBlade]

I should think that the image of Germans either saluting or marching in unison is one of the most common images of the period.  Your co-workers sound like they are editing out of a sense of personal bias rather than accepted usage.

[Jonathon]

I don't think it's bias. They're all insisting that it isn't accepted usage, because they searched in an online dictionary of idioms and couldn't find "march to the same tune", as if that proves that the phrase doesn't exist or doesn't make sense.

[rivka]

All that proves is that it's not a cliche.

I'd think that might be a good thing.

[Jonathon]

Or simply one that they're not familiar with. But one girl kept insisting that it wasn't a real idiom. First of all, I'd disagree, and second, so what?

But what really baffled me was the insistence that it didn't make any sense or meant the opposite of what was intended.

[rivka]

I join you in your bafflement.

Or simply one that they're not familiar with.

I meant the fact that they couldn't find it in the idiom dictionary.

[BlackBlade]

Or simply one that they're not familiar with. But one girl kept insisting that it wasn't a real idiom. First of all, I'd disagree, and second, so what?

But what really baffled me was the insistence that it didn't make any sense or meant the opposite of what was intended.

Does an idiom have to be documented in order for it to be used?  I mean if I make one up and its well put together well enough that its meaning is clear, would an editor still strike it?

[dkw]

Tell them it's imagery, not an idiom.

The only part of it I thought was not completely clear was whether the "party line" at the end was the LDS line or the Nazi line.  But it's clear after a half-second double-take what the author means.

[Jonathon]

I meant the fact that they couldn't find it in the idiom dictionary.

Gotcha.

Does an idiom have to be documented in order for it to be used?  I mean if I make one up and its well put together well enough that its meaning is clear, would an editor still strike it?

To the first question, no. After all, it has to be used before it becomes noticeable enough to be documented, right? And to the second, a good editor wouldn't. I think it's a mark of amateur editing to come across an unfamiliar phrase and delete it or change it as a reflex. This post is a good explanation of how good editors should work.

Tell them it's imagery, not an idiom.

Yeah. I don't know why they were so hung up on the question of whether it was an established idiom.

[dkw]

Where/how do you draw the line between editing and re-writing?   What do you when you're pretty sure you could write the paper/chapter/book better but that's not really your job?  Or how do you deal with the frustration of knowing that you could do it better but that that's not your job?

That could be a general or specific "you" up there -- anyone who edits other people's stuff feel free to answer.  Other people's stuff other than school papers, that is.  That's a much easier line for me to draw.  

ETA:  didn't mean to limit that.  Anyone please answer what you would do, but those who do do please tell me what you do do.

But not what you doo doo, I get enough of that conversation with my kids.

[pooka]

I agree with the run over with bus person.  Though I would try and come up with a more original way to say it.  It sounds hackneyed, even if it has not technically ever been published before. 

My qualification is as a former legal secretary and as an english speaker working for a non english speaking boss.  The violations of english that go on at my job are so frequent and horrible I really wind up picking my battles.  I do sometimes worry about documents that get sent out to allied providers and facilities and if they understand the complications involved in working for my boss.  Unlikely.  They probably just assume our whole office is illiterate.

[Jonathon]

Where/how do you draw the line between editing and re-writing?   What do you when you're pretty sure you could write the paper/chapter/book better but that's not really your job?  Or how do you deal with the frustration of knowing that you could do it better but that that's not your job?

That could be a general or specific "you" up there -- anyone who edits other people's stuff feel free to answer.  Other people's stuff other than school papers, that is.  That's a much easier line for me to draw.  

ETA:  didn't mean to limit that.  Anyone please answer what you would do, but those who do do please tell me what you do do.

But not what you doo doo, I get enough of that conversation with my kids.

Boy, you could probably write whole books about this question, and every editor is probably going to give you a different answer.

Personally, I prefer a light hand by default. For one thing, I think that ideas about what makes writing better or worse are often pretty subjective and difficult to justify. For another thing, not all authors are appreciative of substantive revisions or rewriting. Some authors get pretty upset that you're butchering their words and changing their meaning; other authors appreciate that you've improved their words and strengthened or clarified their meaning. And a lot of authors don't really have the best understanding of what copy editors do. Some think we're just here to clean up mistakes and apply consistent style and formatting. Others expect more than that. If you're working on something that you think could use a pretty substantive edit, I think it's best to check with the author first and see how much editing they're comfortable with.

A lot of editors talk about advocating for the reader or working as an intermediary between author and reader, but the truth is that editors are not normal readers and don't necessarily know how normal readers will respond. However, some editors will react as if they are the only reader, changing everything that seems even a little weird or unclear to them. Some editors are of the opinion that even potential ambiguities, however unlikely they are, should be changed, but I like to give readers more credit than that.

But there are plenty of times when I know I could write something better, but I basically just remind myself that it's not my job. It can still be pretty frustrating, though, to feel like we're publishing subpar stuff. I just try to remind myself several things:

• I'm not the authors' research assistant or coauthor or ghostwriter. By default, I assume that they don't want me to be.
• I can't necessarily assume that what I think would be better really would be better in the eyes of the author and readers.
• I don't get paid enough to worry about rewriting everything that stinks.

There's always going to be some frustration when you feel like you could make it better, but it's not your job. It's actually one reason why I get really tired of editing sometimes—I don't like feeling like we're publishing mediocre work and there's nothing I can do about it. This is why I sometimes prefer typesetting—at least I can ensure that the final product looks good.

[dkw]

I'm not the authors' research assistant or coauthor or ghostwriter. By default, I assume that they don't want me to be

Heh.  I am the author's research assistant.  I guess I'm trying to figure out the line between that and ghostwriter.