[Editors] The Great American copy editor

[Lisa Damtoft]

For copy editors everywhere who dream big dreams...  :)

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Someday, I Will Copyedit The Great American Novel
By Joanne Cohen
The Onion, 26 January 2005
http://www.theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4104&o=2

Most of my coworkers here at Washington Mutual have no idea who I 
really am. They see me correcting spelling errors in press releases 
and removing excess punctuation from quarterly reports, and they 
think that's all there is to me. But behind these horn-rimmed 
glasses, there's a woman dreaming big dreams. I won't be stuck 
standardizing verb tenses in business documents my whole life. One 
day, I will copyedit the Great American Novel.

"Sure," you say, "along with every other detail-oriented grammarian 
in the country." Yes, I know how many idealistic young people dream 
of taking a manuscript that captures the spirit of 21st-century 
America and removing all of its grammatical and semantic errors. But 
how many of them know to omit the word "bear" when referring to 
koalas? How many know to change "pompom" to "pompon"?

Copyediting is a craft. A good copy editor knows the rules of 
punctuation, usage, and style, but a truly great copy editor knows 
when to break them. Macaulay's copy editor let him begin sentences 
with "but." JFK's copy editor knew when to let a split infinitive 
work its magic. You need only look at Thackeray to see the damage 
that overzealous elegant variation can do. Right now, there's a 
writer out there with a vision as vast as Mark Twain's or F. Scott 
Fitzgerald's. He is laboring in obscurity, working with deliberate 
patience. He isn't using tricks of language or pyrotechnic plot 
turns. He is doing the hardest work of all, the work of Melville, of 
Cather: He is capturing life on the page. And when the time comes, 
I'll be here-green pencil in hand-to remove the excess commas from 
that page.

  With clear eyes and an unquenchable thirst for syntactical truth, I 
will distinguish between defining and non-defining relative clauses 
and use "that" and "which" appropriately. I will locate and remove 
the hyphen from any mention of "sky blue" the color and insert the 
hyphen into any place where the adjective "blue" is qualified by 
"sky." I will distinguish between "theism" and "deism," between 
"evangelism" and "evangelicalism," between "therefor" and 
"therefore." I will use the correct "duct tape," and not the oft-seen 
apocope "duck tape." The Great American Novel's editor will expect no 
less of me, for his house will be paying me upwards of $15 an hour, 
more than it paid the author himself.

To a writer who didn't strive for perfection, my corrections would 
seem niggling. But the author of the Great American Novel will 
understand that I am as essential to his book as the ink that will 
cover sheaf after sheaf of virgin paper.

Some people edit copy because they choose to. I copyedit because I 
must. It isn't merely a matter of making a living. If it were that, I 
would have been line editing years ago. No, I've been fascinated by 
the almost mathematical questions of copy since the summer of my 15th 
birthday, when I found a leather-bound diary hidden away in the 
cupboard of an old abandoned farmhouse. In the diary, a young 
housemaid recorded her hopes, fears, and aspirations.

That summer, I spent many hours poring over the handwritten book, pen 
in hand, correcting grammar and writing "sp" next to words. I urged 
paragraph breaks, provided omitted words, and indicated improper 
capitalizations with a short double-underline. I wrote "stet" in the 
margins when I made a mistake. Even though I knew Miss Charlotte 
would never see the notation, I wanted the text to be flawless.

In my mind's eye, I can see the galleys of the Great American Novel 
on my desk. There is no time to waste. Deadlines have been missed, 
for the writer has passed out on his desk many times after writing 
into the wee hours. But, finally, he has perfected the 23rd draft. 
His work is done.

I get myself a fresh cup of coffee, get out several sharpened green 
pencils, and adjust my noise-reduction headphones for the long task 
ahead. I lower my head into my cubicle. My work is just beginning.