Reversible

I've had some bad bosses, my friends. I've also had a lot of good bosses, but the bad ones are so much more fun to talk about (I believe Leo Tolstoy said something along that line).

One bad boss wasn't my boss for very long. She had a massive crush on some guy in the office, and, when that didn't work out well, she moved across the country to a city where an ex-boyfriend just happened to live.

During the months she supervised me and my confreres, she wasn't a BAD bad boss—no red-faced screaming fits, no head-scratching displays of incompetence. She was just kind of a silly and not terribly involved presence around the cubicles.

And yet she said something exactly right to me, at exactly the right time. I was working on a big book, and the release-to-printer deadline was at hand. "You must be glad to see this one go," she said in an offhand way to me.

I allowed as how I was not.

She expressed surprise. I admitted I was worried I hadn't found every error. I might be releasing a book with errors! I didn't want to let it out of my hands, not yet. If only I could look at it a little bit more. There could be problems I hadn't seen!

"If there are mistakes," she said calmly, "we will fix them."

More than twenty-five years later, I can recall the sense of relief that washed over me.

Here's what I heard: Everyone makes mistakes. They are not the end of the world, even when they're in print (and hardbound). We still have another round of proof, another chance for you to weed out boo-boos. Failing that, errata sheets can be employed. Then there's always the next edition. Mistakes are not the end of the world.

Even I, the most anxious and desperate-to-touch-perfection young professional in a hundred-mile radius, resonated to the wisdom in what she said. I think about it still.

It's just a great mantra for anal, obsessive editors, and the people who supervise them: Work hard, then relax; if there are mistakes, we will fix them. (Feckless, la-di-dah editors, plug your ears. We'll come up with another mantra for you.)

Thank you, bad boss. You may have been my best boss.

I me mine

You're at an office meeting—perhaps you work at a university—and everyone around the table is full of grand ideas and eager to share them. At length, with numerous examples.

Or you're watching a couple of pundits on TV confidently debate the prospects of this candidate or that proposal.

The vibe is cerebral, self-possessed, a little poindextery.

Then someone says, "That's exactly the way it looked to she and I."

Immediately, the "wah wahhhh" sad trombone sounds (at least, it does in your head), and you start applying a little more cynical scrutiny to everything that person says.

How do so many people—smart, highly educated people—get this pronoun case wrong, in writing and in speech? It seems they convince themselves the subjective case must be right here, because it sounds more elegant, more in tune with elevated discourse.

Even though you would never, ever say, "That's exactly the way it looked to we."

I have Mr. Moore, my high-school Latin teacher, to thank for my rarely falling into this bear trap of English grammar. Once you learn the accusative case, you are unlikely to stick an "I," "she," or "he" where a lowbrow "me," "her," or "him" is called for.

Uncrook the pinky, people. Sometimes, the plain-sounding objective pronoun is actually the refined choice.

Paper chase(r)

When I copyedit—especially at a level that involves some significant text changes—what I do is I . . . I . . . Maybe I shouldn't say.

It's kind of a shameful thing to admit. I've never really talked about it with other editors. One I told once looked at me blankly. So I've always assumed this is just my little oddity, something no one else needs to do. I'm slow-witted, clearly. I should keep my obvious competence lacunae to myself.

But it really helps me. I can't be the only one, right?

Okay [deep breath]. I edit the electronic file, until it looks good to me on my display screen.

Then I print it out (!) and read the printed pages (!!). And I see a million, bazillion errors and infelicities I still need to fix.

This always happens. I require a printed-page read to get my edit a lot closer to fine/rigorous/tight.

I have no idea why this is so. Does each medium light up different language-function cells, in different parts of the brain?

All I know is this: The printed-page chaser never fails to yield stuff I need to fix. I've tested this approach many times over a lot of years. I can only conclude that I see in a different way when I look at words on paper than when I read from a computer screen.

I have enough mileage as an editor to remember the time when it was ALL paper. I wouldn't go back to those days for love or money. Working with electronic files lets you really dig deep, and buff to a high-gloss finish.

But firing up the inkjet for the last round (or two) of edits is essential quality control (for me).

Hello, my name is Proof Cabinet, and I need paper.

To Be or not to be

Nothing says "untouched by editorial expertise" like lowercase "to be" verbs in cap/lowercase text.

You see this error everywhere. High:

BroadBig Industries is a Rising Star, Market Experts Say

And low:

Your Septic Needs are Our Business. Call Kleen-N-Fast Now!

An easy Boy Scout badge to earn, it's nonetheless an oft-ignored one. All short words are not created equal. Conjunctions ("and," "but," "yet") and short prepositions ("in," "of," "with") get the lowercase treatment. Short verbs do not.

When you cap a "to be" verb in a cap/lc setting, you shine a bright, reassuring, can-do light. This is true for editors, obviously, who are paid to get every detail right. But, more important, it's true for companies who produce print or electronic materials of any kind.

You look smart. And, as every marketeer knows, it is far, far better to look smart than to be smart.

Eponymous

If you google it and no hits come up, does it exist?

You'd be tempted to say nuh-uh, nope, it doesn't. But, in this case, you'd be wrong. I think.

In the 1980s, when I first started working as an editor at a book publisher, a proof cabinet was the most coveted piece of office furniture. Evah. Made of super-sturdy wood, with movable shelves, it organized all your manuscript and proof for the all books you had in process. You'd use your Selectric to neatly type a label for each adjustable cubbyhole, so you knew right where the proofread first pages for your intro to U.S. political science title were.

Whenever editors left the company, the rush to snag their proof cabinet was fierce. Young editors had to wait their turn for one. Lucky old-timers sometimes had TWO proof cabinets, stacked into an impressive tower. I always assumed proof cabinets were expensive commodities, since our company never seemed to buy new ones; the old ones were just endlessly recycled.

I swear, those things weighed a ton. I used to say I would jump at the chance to buy one for my house. Now I'm thankful I never added a wooden receptacle heavier than a refrigerator to my worldly goods.

Not long ago, I started reminiscing about proof cabinets, and searched the web for images of them. Nada. Mentions of them? Zip. I even checked with one of my old book-publishing colleagues: Wasn't that what those things were called? Yes.

Maybe people at other publishing houses called them something else.

But maybe proof cabinets just never made the leap over to the electronic age, and are now essentially lost in the sands of time. It makes me sad. I loved proof cabinets, because I love being an editor.

To me, proof cabinets were emblematic of the publishing mystique, the feeling that you were doing important work with smart people. And that getting your piece of the work right—overseeing the creation of organized, clear, concise, accurate, meaningful, interesting reading materials—was part of a grand tradition you were called upon to uphold.

Long live the proof cabinet.

Is style dead?

If you're a professional editor (of words, not video or film), you fall into one of two categories. You believe the devil is in the details. Or you believe that's where God lies.

I fall so firmly in the latter category that I'd like to excommunicate any editor who's wishy-washy on the subject of serial commas. Not really. Actually, yes, really.

More and more, I meet editors who say they follow Chicago or AP "with certain exceptions," numbering from the handful to the too-many-to-fully-enumerate.

Unfortunately, here's what these loopholes communicate: "I am/my organization is too lazy to actually learn the rules. It's so much easier to pretend to know them! Then assert creative license! We spit in the general direction of your stringent rules. They are too narrow to hold us, for we are large in our ideas and our originality!"

The truth is, as Bob Dylan would remind you, you've gotta serve somebody. When you set yourself up as your own style boss, you risk looking sloppy, or ignorant, or both. And readers who know the rules will judge you accordingly. No organization can risk this kind of negative impression.

"But, Proof Cabinet," I hear you saying, "how many readers actually know style rules?"

Okay, most don't. Here's the thing, though: Readers sense inconsistency. Even if they can't point to examples of it, they feel uneasy in its presence. I've seen this over and over again. Even stylistically unsophisticated clients prefer rigorously edited copy over slapdash efforts. Good copyediting comforts like a tight swaddle; it helps all readers feel more secure, even when they don't know why.

If organizations have two or three special rules of their own—the president is always "the President," or a Chicago-based style uses AP style for numerals—that's not beyond the pale. My favorite number of deviations is zero, but a controlled few don't qualify as apostasy.

More than that, repent! You're endangering your editorial soul.