In that case, books and newspapers are worth more every day
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 4:55 PM
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
About Me
- Name: Peter Rozovsky
- Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly. Click here to find an independent bookstore near you.
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5 Comments:
So, when I consider the ironies here, I can imagine students telling me in the future that their errors will someday make their writing assignments valuable. Perhaps journalists can say the same thing to their editors. Let's all ignore the errors in hopes of becoming rich someday. Well, perhaps not.
And I remember coming across an inexcusable typographical error in my paperback copy of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing. The error annoyed me so much that I tossed the book aside, and I never returned to it.
I rather enjoy reading about some of the errors cited in the ABE page.
The whole issue reminds me of a different experience. A student was excited to have found an autographed copy of a Mark Twain book in the university library; nothing could persuade the student that the autograph was not genuine. Of course, when I pointed out the 1924 publication date in the book, the student was crestfallen.
Yes, all sorts of "errors" in books can cause all sorts of problems.
I can well imagine some student saying, "Like, chill, dude. This will be worth something one day." to which my response would be, "Errors are only worth something if they're rare."
Or who think the synonym for pulling back is reigning in
I put up a post some time back about the "black people" typo that the ABE article mentions, or rather about the publisher's reaction, which was to attack and belittle people who complained.
I hesitate to point out some of the errors I've found in books because I don't like to make writers look bad, especially when the publisher is ultimately responsible for letting mistakes see the light of day. Suffice it to say that many writers, reporters, and copy editors, if the publisher bothers with such a luxury, don't know the difference between loath and loathe or who think humans speak with their vocal chords
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