Depleted newsrooms are every day illustrating what a lack of copy editing does — a slow sapping of quality and quality control. It doesn’t mean no news is gathered or that the language is destroyed, but the effect might be more insidious. Only the most able-eyed and loudest notice, and their noise is often dismissedContinue reading “Society’s quality-control problem with editing”
Category Archives: spell-check
Even The Onion makes mistakes
The Onion is undeniably a brilliant publication of satire, parody and wit. But it’s also one of the best-edited publications you could hope to find. Sure, the stories are fake, as are the quotes and, often, the subjects, places, events and settings. But there’s plenty of bad literature to dispel the notion that only nonfictionContinue reading “Even The Onion makes mistakes”
Spell-check makes audiophiles sound like pedophiles
I tweeted on this specifically recently, as well as the general problem of spell-check, but then came this example. We all know the word “podcast,” right? Well, some spell-checking software doesn’t. The one in question suggests “produces” for “podcast.” That’s innocent enough. But what if there are multiple podcasts? Well, then, it’s a different story:Continue reading “Spell-check makes audiophiles sound like pedophiles”
Spell-check your way to disaster
The reasons not to consolidate editing solely to a spell-check are obvious and stated many times over. Even Wikipedia agrees, so we are getting somewhere on that front. And the Boston Globe’s website recently published some typo anecdotes that spell-check would have failed to catch — and at least one that it probably caused. ButContinue reading “Spell-check your way to disaster”
James daSilva 