Why Editors Are Important... Ouch!

An article in the Orange County Register explained how a typo on a multi-million-dollar bid could cost a construction contractor an almost 100 million contract.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/bid-whiting-turner-2436902-airport-million

Must Have Used the Same Sign Provider?

When you realize you are having problems with words like "clutches", maybe it would have been wise to consult a dictionary? Or, at least ask someone else to proofread this? Or perhaps look at the paperwork or boxes from the companies that send you "clutches"?

But hey, these folks fix clutches, they don't fix words. I'll promise to not fix any clutches if they promise to not take my job of being an editor/proofreader!

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Why You Can't Depend on the Print Shop to Proofread Your Documents!

Sometimes you will see obvious indications that perhaps you should hire your own proofreader/editor to check your proofs (that's the reason why those things are called "proofs") before you give the go-ahead for your printer to run a few thousand of your corporate brochures.

Really... wouldn't you think SOMEONE would have noticed this? And if they had, don't you think it would have been wise to fix it? Are the owner and employees all sitting behind the order counter wondering why there's not much traffic to their store? Ah, the questions are endless.

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Descriptive versus Prescriptive Grammar

You may wonder about the differences between these two types of grammar. I've mentioned this before, but I'll discuss them a little more now.

Prescriptive grammar sticks with rigid rules of grammar that have been long rooted in Latin and Ancient Greek. Aristotlean prescriptive rules on "parts of speech" and how these "parts" work together are applied strictly to English structure and usage. Unfortunately, sometimes English doesn't want to fit very well into Aristotle's vision of grammar, and the Prescriptive grammarians try to pound English into the mold.

Uh, guys, Latin and Ancient Greek are dead languages... they don't change. Modern English is always changing --as are all living languages, so new vocabulary is created, adapted, adopted and used. Live with it!) <---- This is the view of Descriptive grammarians.

We (yes, I admit I am one!) believe that professionals in using a language should learn the structure and usage of traditional grammar so we can get a firm grasp of the basics, and then identify how a modern language implements these components (or similar components).

For instance, English has a part of speech called an article... An indefinite article is the word "a". A definite article is the word "the". However, in Japanese, there's a component of their grammar called a "particle" ("wa")--that has a function as a sort of a cross between a preposition and an article.

The point is this... stop trying to force living languages into a grammatical mold based on dead languages!

However, just because it's okay to be a bit more "free" with your now "unrestricted" use of English doesn't mean you should get sloppy (really, truly sloppy) with your writing. Spelling is still important. Use of apostrophes to indicate possessives and contractions is still important. There are cases in which English is awkward when used "properly" according to prescriptive grammar "rules". Descriptive grammarians avoid this awkwardness by "breaking" or "bending" the rules a bit. They note that other living languages do not have this problem because the other languages have vocabulary that gets around this issue.

The study of languages is fascinating.

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Well, at least they didn't say "sangwich"....

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Okay, we can accept that perhaps the person who wrote this was in a hurry. But really, how hard is it to spell "sandwich"? (The thing was named after the supposed "founder" of the meal consisting of meat and veggies surrounded by two pieces of bread--The "Earl of Sandwich")

Under New Managment. Yup.

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When you have large banners such as these presenting your business to the public, you'd think that SOMEONE somewhere would proofread the thing before sticking it up for the whole world to see. Awesome. This proves that editors have a purpose! (Either that, or illiterates!)

Where Are All the Proofreaders?

Sometimes you are driving along... and a typo or other problem almost as big as a barn causes you to do a double-take. This one was so good that I had to stop the car and get a picture of it. (Yeah, I know. I shouldn't be editing when I'm driving. It's almost as dangerous as texting when driving.)


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Does Anyone Proofread Their Signs Anymore?

I've never experienced a "Monglian" BBQ. Someone obviously noticed and added the "O". But really. Why not do it right instead of this half-attempt? Ah, well.

Proofreading seems to be a lost art. No one is doing it anymore. Even in the sign making business. You see signs everywhere in which someone could have made a better impression if they had just proofread what they had put on the sign. It's bad enough when the name of the store is spelled incorrectly, but how about if the phone number or street address of the establishment is wrong?

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The Demise of Readable, Understandable English--From a Reader's Viewpoint

It's sad.

In my daily running around, I see flyers, brochures, huge banners, technical manuals, magazines, newspapers, non-fiction books, and novels peppered with typos, spelling errors, and grammatical gaffes.

I belong to "professional" groups--some of them groups for writers and editors... and I see typos, spelling errors, and grammatical errors in the posts. Some of these errors are things like misused apostrophes and subject-verb agreement. Things that are simple enough that they should have been caught. Aaargh!

And yes, I, too have occasionally had butter-fingers and have hit the "send/submit/enter" button without noticing that I misspelled something or that I missed a word. Typing fast on a laptop when being distracted by the dog wanting to go out or my wife fussing with me to come to dinner is a major hazard in creating perfect text--at least for me. However, writing in a forum or fooling around on the web while on the couch at home is different than when working on a professional job. As a writer, I value an extra set of eyes (another trusted reader) to view my text to ensure that I haven't made any serious gaffes. As an editor, I offer that service to my fellow writers.

I'm disappointed that companies in the U.S. don't seem to care about the editorial quality of their publications, their internal documents, and their customer-facing documents any more. They are so concerned about "saving money" that they no longer see the need to pay for U.S. based "editorial professionals" to help them with their documents. If they DO decide to get their documents written or edited, more and more are not only outsourcing their documentation, but they are offshoring it--sending it off to India. What they get back may be what resembles English, but it usually reflects the difference in culture and languages (the folks in India retain the English of the old U.K. Colonial times... and this makes for awkward reading for U.S. readership--some of the old U.K. expressions don't quite translate well into U.S. English).

Whether or not you liked the above comment doesn't matter. It's a fact. If you try to read some of the offshored documents, if you are a native U.S. English speaker, you will see and know what I mean. This is similar to the documentation that accompanies products made in China or Japan (or Romania or Italy, for that matter)--they find someone in the village who has "learned English" in the local high school or technical school... and they assign the person to "translate" the assembly or operation instructions into English. That person does it frequently enough, and they can market themselves as a "technical writer" or "technical editor" or "translator"--then they get more gigs doing the same for other products. If you've ever bought a VCR or other contraption, just check the user's manual to see what I mean.

Hey, more kudos to the person for giving it their best shot. I've taken Japanese, Russian, Spanish, and Mandarin in high school and college... and yeah, given enough time with a bi-lingual dictionary, I could probably translate a user manual, say for a VCR, into Japanese, Russian, Spanish, or Mandarin. But I guarantee that the receiving end of that manual would be rolling on the floor laughing their butts off at how incompetent and hilarious my "translation" would be. Well... the same goes for stuff coming in OUR direction.

You need a final editorial check by a native-speaker of the target language to review the doc for accurate and readable English. If you want the target readers to be in the U.K.--then get a U.K. editor to review it. If you want the target readers to be in the U.S.--then get a U.S. editor to review it. That's the only way to keep your documentation from being trashed by your customers--your end users.

Will it get worse? Perhaps. That's why I offer my services to help companies improve the quality of their documentation.

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