=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 4, no. 28 (25 July 1999) Editorial mailing list Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: [1] Editorial Q & A---previous queries [2ia] Who(m) cares? [2ic] Roman numerals [2if] Some terminology [2ig] Editing versus revising [2ih] Vector products FYI [3dz] Australian slang [3et] The Zeros [3eu] Best bad writing [6] Just for fun [7] Miscellaneous Sledging Free to good home - domain name [8] Administration =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[1] Editorial ----------------------------------------------- Erratum Item [3es] in EDline 4.27, on small business support organisations, was incorrectly headed "Recruit Media moves". Please note that the item relating to Recruit Media appeared in EDline 4.26. Jane Kerr ---[2] Q & A --------------------------------------------------- ** [2ia] Who(m) cares? Date: Sat, 24 July 1999 From: Diana Boatman, Boatmans@compuserve.com Maybe it's the weather, but I am getting increasingly hot under the collar about this correspondence! I use it in speech and on paper, and find it unproblematic. "Who" is used for the subject of a sentence (nominative), "whom" for the object (accusative) or after prepositions (dative or ablative in that long-forgotten school Latin). Anyone who has difficulty in deciding when "whom" is more appropriate than "who" may find it easier to consider, for comparison,a similar sentence or phrase with "he" or "him" in place of "who" and "whom". I hope this doesn't sound smug, and I stand to be corrected by all you linguists out there, but let's put this string to rest soon. ----------------------- Date: Wed, 28 July 1999 From: Jane Kerr, bywater@zetnet.co.uk The original question was about whether the technically incorrect "Who did you meet there?" has gained the ascendant over the correct version using "whom". The former is certainly more widespread in spoken and, I suspect, written forms. To what extent do copy-editors insist on the "correct" version? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ic] Roman numerals Date: Tues, 20 July 1999 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk Last week I had another look at that list of Roman numerals and their arabic equivalents, the one which started this whole discussion. And yes, it does say in small print that a bar over the numeral means multiplication by 1,000. Does this mean we could write 2000 AD as II with a bar?! Shame; I'm looking forward to writing 'MM'. Another question on Roman numerals. Can one write four identical numerals in sequence? I know watches have IIII instead of IV, for aesthetic reasons. But I was standing outside University yesterday and noticed one of the buildings had MDCCCCVII. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2if] Some terminology Date: Wed, 21 July 1999 From: Sarah Barrett, westowe@dircon.co.uk With regard to David Ibbetson and Axel Schonfeld on: > i. walnut burl > ii. burl walnut > iii. burled walnut I thought the phrase was 'burr walnut'; but I find from the SOED that it is 'bur walnut', meaning walnut wood with knots in it. I've seen the word applied to other woods in a local craft shop. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ig] Editing versus revising Date: Thur, 22 July 1999 From: Hilary Powers, HPowers1@compuserve.com Joy Burrough-Boenisch wrote: > I'm interested in EDliners' views on the difference between > editing and revising a text. Well, as I see it, editors edit and authors revise -- it's a matter of the mental attitude behind the work more than the physical operation. As an editor, I try to make a manuscript sound more like the author's best and (in a heavy edit) establish the author's points as effectively as possible within the author's voice. As a writer digging into my own stuff, I challenge what I'm saying as much as how it's said.... Revising involves at least being prepared to change the guts of a piece and not just its presentation. ------------------------ Date: Thur, 22 July 1999 From: Paul Hardy, paul_hardy@tolley.co.uk I would have thought that one revises a text after some extraneous change affecting the content, such as the mere passage of time itself, the passage of new legislation or new scientific discoveries or the like has occurred, while editing is the universal process of making a text publishable. ------------------------ Date: Thur, 27 July 1999 From: Joy Burrough-Boenisch, burrough@bos.nl I have been underwhelmed with editors' responses to my request for views on the difference between 'editing' and 'revision', which I asked as someone who began a career in words as an in-house editor, but later (after arriving in the Netherlands) expanded to include translation. Perhaps everybody's on holiday? I cross-posted my request on LANGline. I had realised that translation agencies asked translators to proofread texts, but had always assumed they meant exactly that. A response to my 'editing versus revision' question (from translator Dominik Kreuzer: dominik@kreuzer.freeserve.co.uk and a home page at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/DKreuzer) has alerted me to the fact that a translator's 'proofreading' is not the same as an editor's 'proofreading'. At least, it's not what I did when I was proofreading as an in-house editor many years ago. Or am I behind the times? Here's what Dominik wrote: > many translators and translation companies (incorrectly) > use the term proof-reading to mean what you call revising or > editing: when I am asked to proofread a translation, what is - > more often than not - actually wanted is verification of > technical terminology, conformance with the source text, etc. > (i.e. revision). In fact, translators who work mainly for > agencies rarely even get to see the proofs, yet often talk of > proofreading. So, how about some reactions from dinkum proofreaders, for comparison? And to return to my original (implied) question: do editors distinguish between revision and editing? What I'm really interested in knowing is whether non-translator editors and translators do the same sorts of things to a text when they say they're 'editing' it. I don't think they do. ------------------------ Date: Thur, 27 July 1999 From: Dominik Kreuzer, dominik@kreuzer.freeserve.co.uk Joy Burrough-Boenisch wrote: > What I'm really interested in knowing is whether non-translator > editors and translators do the same sorts of things to a text > when they say they're 'editing' it. I don't think they do. I must qualify my reply by saying that I am not very familiar with the world of editing (although your question has prompted me to look into the subject more closely) and, not having formally studied translation, don't know to what extent editing and proof- reading skills are taught in translation courses. FWIW, my impression is this: Knowledge of grammar, punctuation, good style, etc. are as much required skills for a translator as they are for an editor (or, for that matter, by an author). Translators are - in my experience (which largely excludes staff translators) - generally not familiar with markup conventions and with the requirements of the publisher/printer. This, I imagine, is in part due to the fact that they are further removed from publishing/printing than the editor, often being at the end of a long chain of communication (translator-agency-client-printer). In some ways, their role is closer to that of the author than that of the editor. Having written the translation in the first place, translators are "closer" to the text, which can make it harder to take an objective view of it. Most editing done by translators (certainly by this one) is of their own work. Also, translators - who focus on rendering meaning into language - tend to give closer consideration to wording, terminology and style than the author, whose focus is as much on structuring her thoughts than on the actual words themselves. Translators, you could say, have the thoughts handed to them and can fully concentrate on the words. In addition, there is stage involved in editing translation that monolingual editors do not have to worry about: that of checking the translation for correspondence with the source text. Translation companies / agencies are also sometimes wary of extensive edits, because editing - being charged by the hour - eats into their profits. Some only have translations edited if they suspect that the translator has not done a very good job. Perhaps that is why te term proof-reading tends to be used by them, even if they hand you a text of draft quality. I suppose the bottom line is that editing and translation both require a wide range of skills, many of which overlap but - due to the nature of the respective jobs - have a slightly different focus. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [2ih] Vector products Date: Thur, 22 July 1999 From: Eddie Kent, EDDIE.KENT@MCR1.poptel.org.uk C. Douglas Meekison wrote: > Is it ever correct to write the scalar product of two vectors > without a symbol between the vectors [...] I was taught that > the scalar product should be written with a dot, i.e. a.b > (point either on the line or raised), and my reference books > bear this out. Is this out of date? There are more kinds of multiplication in mathematics than you can shake a stick at, and there are certainly not enough symbols to go round. There is a line dot, a raised dot, a bold dot, an x, an x in a circle, a circle, an upside down V, an upside down U (set intersection is often called a product of sets). A book is generally going to be written entirely within its field, so anyone reading it will know what is meant. But in a journal, where papers come from many different disciplines, one should aim for immediate clarity. I have heard the term 'scalar product' used in two different ways - multiplication of a vector by a scalar (giving a new vector) and 'multiplication' of two vectors (giving a scalar). This last is often called the dot product and to a real mechanic the only way of writing it is two bold roman symbols separated by a (bold raised) dot. In this it is distinguished from a vector product which is two bold roman symbols separated by the upside down V. Thus checking is easier because a dot on the left of the equals sign implies light face italic on the right; anything else requires bold roman there. Mathematicians working informally tend to use the concatenation form 'ab' for everything, but for formal work it is well to impose a little order. But whatever you do, make sure it is defined and consistent. If you think that should be the author's job then get her to do it. (By the way, it is a very long time since I heard of the 'outer product'. I suppose this is the same as exterior product, which I vaguely remember having to prove is equivalent to the vector product; or was that only in three dimensions?) ---[3] FYI ---------------------------------------------------- ** [3dz] Australian slang Date: Tue, 20 July 1999 From: Eddie Kent, eddie.kent@mcr1.poptel.org.uk The Eyrie Newsletter, that I have mentioned before, in its latest issue has news of some Australian dictionaries. It also mentions Ozwords a free newsletter , which addresses issues relating to Australian slang. For instance, Waltzing Matilda - who was Matilda? COD says 'a bushman's bundle; a swag; waltz (= walk) Matilda (= the name Matilda) - carry a swag.' Well, that explains that then. So - Who was Matilda? (Come to that, who was Sheila?) +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [3et] The Zeros Date: Thur, 22 July 1999 From: Eddie Kent, EDDIE.KENT@MCR1.poptel.org.uk I have noticed that broadcasters when talking about the year 2004, say, call it two thousand and four, whereas 1904 is always nineteen oh four. Why do you suppose this is? I'll try not to be here for it, but I hope people will not be talking, when the time comes, about two thousand and fifty six. ------------------------ Date: Thur, 22 July 1999 From: Bobster Falvey, bobster@vicnet.net.au Iain Brown wrote: > [A] recent poll recorded that the British public prefers to > call the next decade 'the Zeros'. [...] According to a survey, > 'the Zeros' was followed by the 'Oh-Ohs' and then 'the Earlies' I'm curius to know whether 'the Noughties' was offered as an option. I think it's more preferable than those mentioned. It's certainly more playful, correct (in terms of the Oh-Ohs!), and I'd be a bit concerned if someone said that I had 'Zeros values'. Any suggestions? +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ** [3eu] Best bad writing Date: Tues, 20 July 1999 From: Iain Brown, iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk If it is not a tautology, the _Daily Telegraph_ reported the winner of the prize for 'best bad writing'. The English Department at San Jose State University runs the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest *, which challenges people to write the worst opening sentence to a novel. David Chuter, a Londoner, wrote the following winning sentence: Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the greasy cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life. Anyone want to edit this into something more managable? --- * The contest is named after Edward George, Earl Bulwer-Lytton, who published _Paul Clifford_ in 1830, which begins famously: 'It was a dark and stormy night.' ---[6] Just for fun ------------------------------------------- "How to write good", no. 21 Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ "Modern phrases", no. 4 CARPERPETUATION (kar' pur pet u a shun) n. The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Date: Sat, 24 July 1999 From: Diana Boatman, Boatmans@compuserve.com > From _HSBC business update_, Summer 1999, Issue 18, under "the business line": Q: What is a company's legal obligation to an employee who is pregnant? A: ...An employee who has given their [NB gender PC, or is it the plural form?] employer notification of pregnancy has certain entitlements. ... They include: reasonable time off with pay for anti-natal care. ---[7] Miscellaneous ------------------------------------------ Sledging Date: Fri, 23 July 1999 From: Eddie Kent, eddie.kent@mcr1.poptel.org.uk Do you know how long the word sledging has been around? My American dictionary has no mention of it but it seems to be fairly well established with COD. There it is defined as: Cricket slang - the heaping of insults on an opposing player in order to break his or her concentration [from 'sledge' 'use a sledgehammer on']. But the practice has been around for a while. For instance take the Rev. Lord Frederick Beauclerk, DD, Vicar of St Albans (1773 - 1850) and great grandson of Charles II and Nell Gwynne. He was known in Soho as Fred Diamond-Eye. As a keen cricketer he admitted to making GBP600 a year out of the game. Work that out in today's money - I would say more than half a million. It is rumored that at least some of this came from backing his opponents, but nothing was suspected at the time. He would appear at the wicket wearing a scarlet sash and a white beaver hat. His gold pocket watch would be hung on the middle stump as a goad (or sledge) to the bowler. Although Boycott would have little trouble protecting it I would not like to trust anyone less boring. Come to that, the reverend's sermons were said to be excrutiatingly dull, but perhaps he needed the sleep. However, the cricketing oddity who most excites my imagination is Hesketh K. Naylor, that rarest of birds, an American cricket fan. In the middle of the nineteenth century he was a well-known New York millionaire. He was also impotent. He got his sexual gratification from having teams of women play cricket before him with balloons and without clothes. I am not suggesting this as a way to bring in the crowds but, boy, would it beat sledging! Anyone not clear what cricket is can take consolation from George Bernard Shaw. When told England were doing well in the Australian Tests he asked 'What are they testing?' But he was just an Irish troublemaker. At least Abdul Aziz, the Turkish potentate known as Abdul the Damned, could appreciate the finer points of the game. After watching a match he exclaimed 'Remarkable. But what needless exertion! Why do you not compel your slaves and concubines to perform it for you?' Ah! Why not indeed. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Free to good home - domain name Date: Wed, 21 July 1999 From: Keta Hodgson, tketa@earthlink.net The following domain name is available to a good home: < global-edit.com > No charge. ---[8] Administration ------------------------------------------ EDline provides the opportunity for a weekly online discussion of matters editorial and editorial business. * POSTING MESSAGES TO THE LIST All messages to be posted to the list should be sent to Jane Kerr, at: bywater@zetnet.co.uk Include as the subject line, "EDline [topic]", where [topic] is the subject under discussion. Topics might include areas such as Grammar, Spelling, American English or Punctuation. Messages should be pertinent to the basic premise of the list; they may be withheld, or redirected if more pertinent to one of the other mailing lists. The spelling and grammar of messages will *not* be corrected, but some editing of length may be undertaken. Quoting from previous messages: quote as much as you need to make the context of your reply clear, but no more. The sections of EDline are as follows: [2] Q & A -- questions and answers [3] FYI -- items of general interest [4] Business matters -- items of a business nature [5] Bookmarks -- useful Web pages [6] Just for fun -- time for letting hair down! [7] Miscellaneous -- odds and sods * Administration All messages of a subscription or administrative nature should be directed to Iain Brown, at: iain.brown@ucl.ac.uk with "EDline ADMIN" in the subject line. * To subscribe to Grapevine To subscribe to Grapevine, the discussion list concerned with matters computing, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe Grapevine] in the subject line. * To subscribe to LANGline To subscribe to LANGline, which discusses modern languages, translation and editing in non-English languages, please e-mail Electric Editors at: ElectricEds@bigfoot.com with [Subscribe LANGline] in the subject line. * Homepage and back issues: Visit the Electric Editors at: < http://www.ikingston.demon.co.uk/ee/ > Back issues of all three mailing lists are available on the Mailing Lists archive page. --------- ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 1999, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996, 1997, Iain Brown Compilation (c) 1999, The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 4.28 Next issue: 1 August 1999 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=