I’m not the first person to bemoan the lack of copy editing in newspapers, magazines and books these days. As one who cringes over restaurant menus (Ceaser salad) and grocers’ apostrophes (Grape’s on sale), I do try to not get worked up over the mangling of spelling and punctuation that we witness daily, and yet...
Yes, of course I do realize that there are larger problems in the world than an erroneous it's, but I truly miss the days when editors edited and proofreaders proofed. Writers passed their copy through a higher authority, and we were all the better for it. Magazines even employed fact checkers. Imagine!
In fact, as I love to tell my kids – and oh do they love to hear it – we used to be able to rely on the big famous newspapers to produce top-quality copy. No more. Sure, strong journalism abounds, but it’s likely to be littered with errors, thereby decreasing reading enjoyment and even comprehension.
Here are a few things I spotted in the past few days:
- Tasty on the palette. A palette is for colours. A palate is in your mouth.
- It peaked my interest. Pique is for interest, peak is for mountains and peek is for glancing.
- I had to reign in my enthusiasm. No, you reined it in. The queen reigns.
- I asked him to be discrete. No, you asked him to be discreet. Discrete means separate or finite.
- Finally, I saw a reference to without further adieu. It’s ado.
Of course there will be a typo in this post. I just know it.
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