Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Moments in Copy Editing


You can book a guided tour or just walk around the park at your leisure followed by a chocolate shake at Lenny’s Café.


With great copy editing power comes great copy editing responsibility. That's why I cannot condone stalking — even if the stalker is a delicious ice cream beverage. I changed it to: "and then stop at Lenny's Cafe for a chocolate shake."



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2 comments:

Joel said...

I don't generally condone stalking, but I might have to make an exception in this case. The sentence flows rather well, in fact. I do understand your professional responsibility, though; I guess we'll just have to "agree to disagree" (but with apologies for that worn out expression).

June Casagrande said...

I almost included a note at the end confessing that the original sentence doesn't constitute a real error. But it's the copy editor's responsibilty to try to avert all possible misconstruals. (I should also include a disclaimer about the word "misconstrual," but I'm too lazy today ...)

Anyway, the idea is that, if it can cause readers to laugh at you instead of with you, it's not gettin' on my page. I'm a badass like that.

: )

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