Archive for April, 2010

…but funny. And hey, regardless of whether or not it’s amusing, I get credit for spelling “sacrilegious” properly. This story dates back to around 1987, when I was working for a typesetting company as a full-time proofreader. Back in the Dark Ages before everyone had a computer, before desktop layout and publishing, companies used typesetters [...]

I have added two new blog sections: 1. Erica’s Editorializing — my thoughts on proofreading and the English language, the occasional rant, etc. 2. Funny Typos and Work Stories — some of my favorite gaffes, plus some amusing work tales I’ve collected during my career. Comments welcome!

A snippet of an article from the Associated Press, 4/17: SYDNEY – An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks over a recipe for pasta with “salt and freshly ground black people.” Penguin Group Australia’s head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it [...]

Yes, I’m a dinosaur. I realize this is the age of texting and tweeting, of cramming as much communication into as few characters as possible, but I detest it. Text speak is the bane of a proofreader’s existence (well, one of them, anyway). Why? Because new generations (and some of the existing ones) use that [...]