[Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Much truth in this. But there is another side of the coin. Who would have thought that the Internet would become a place where young people correct grammatical mistakes made by their peers? And yet this has happened. They may get called Grammar Nazis for doing it, but that doesn't stop them. So beware if you post online and confuse "your" with "you're" - someone will point out your error. My guess is that kids pay more attention to such corrections made online than they do when teacher makes them on an essay that no-one else sees (no criticism of teachers, incidentally). History, as Mr Eliot pointed out, has many cunning passages.

Jeremy H
________________________________
From: Melanie White [melanie.white at comcast.net]
Sent: 29 October 2013 18:29
To: Jeremy Hawthorn; VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor

I worked for many years as a copy editor. As spell-checkers became more common, copy editors became more expendable. In time, copy editor functions were folded into other job descriptions, based on the assumption that anyone semi-literate could do it. Many employers believed just about anybody could copy edit, so why pay a specialist? We were called on to justify ourselves more and more, and eventually our jobs were eliminated.

In the last ten years or so, things like texting and on-line commenting have eroded public expectations. People have grown accustomed to sloppiness and forgive it because they make so many errors themselves when IMing their coworkers or texting with their kids.

I also blame reality TV for a lot of this mixing-up-of-similar-words. Not everyone can reach for the right word and lay hands on it in the moment. Most of us need a sec. But when you’re on a reality TV show and the producer has the camera on you, you don’t want to look hesistant or inarticulate. So you grab at validate but instead end up with solidify. Who cares? You get the idea.

Newspapers are dying or dead, and most magazines and journals exist on paper as a sidelight to their “online presence.” And people seem way more forgiving online, so both editions are infected with rampant carelessness in the rush for 24/7 coverage of everything from Middle East protests to warning signs for botox abuse.

I’m not a snob, I swear. I love the way English continues to grow and change over time. I’m willing and happy to change rules or introduce new usages. I am not opposed to change. But there’s a difference between change and sloppiness.

I’m a lover of words. I consider myself one of a dying breed, the last of a dying species. I am in my mid-50s. I learned to set type on a Varityper, but typesetting was replaced by word processing, which has been replaced by the Internet. I loved the precision of setting type. I love the precision of words. I consider it an art: sensing when to abide by a rule or bend it for the sake of an effect. But some things are just plain wrong when they’re wrong. I wonder when – or whether – we’ll reach bottom in our tolerance for sloppiness. I figure when people start losing money or dying because of it.

N.B. I apologize now for any typos or grammatical mistakes in this post.

From: vwoolf-bounces+melanie.white=comcast.net at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+melanie.white=comcast.net at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Jeremy Hawthorn
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2013 6:00 AM
To: VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor

Fascinating information. Writers do seem to vary enormously when it comes to such things, with some checking every comma and semi-colon at every stage of the publishing process, and others - well, leaving it to spouses and copy editors. As Mark implies, such matters do impact on theories of textual editing. It does seem to me that if a writer leaves the fine-tuning of - say - punctuation to a copy editor, then this has to impact on matters of scholarly editing. Getting back to the "final authorial version" may not be as appropriate in such cases as it is where the writer wanted control over ever tiny detail right through to publication. On the other hand, as anyone who has had their writing copy-edited knows, leaving the final check of your punctuation to someone else must on occasions result in changes of meaning.

Jeremy H


On 25.10.2013 14:20, Mark Hussey wrote:
No, VW was quite sloppy and LW copy edited her texts. In The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942), Leonard wrote of his having “punctuated and corrected obvious verbal mistakes. I have not hesitated to do this, since I always revised the MSS. of her books and articles in this way before they were published.”

Of course, as recent textual editing theory has taught us, editing is always interpretation!

From: vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu> [mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Jeremy Hawthorn
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2013 7:57 AM
To: 'list', 'woolf' ‎[VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<mailto:VWOOLF at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>]‎
Subject: [Vwoolf] Leonard Woolf as copy editor

Is it John Lehmann who has written about how scrupulous a copy editor Leonard W was? I have a memory of some such account. But did Virginia do copy editing for the Hogarth Press? I should know this but don't.

Jeremy H




--

Professor Jeremy Hawthorn

Emeritus Professor

Department of Modern Foreign Languages

NTNU

7491 Trondheim

Norway



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