Many who know me, know I love reading and I have many favorites. With these favorites I often reread them every five years or so. Some of the things that has been jumping out at me lately as I reread some of my favorites are the editing errors. Sometimes it is characters who have been put in the wrong scene or credited with the wrong actions and things like that. But, more often than not it is a word that is not misspelled but is not the word that belongs there.
These misspellings can be typos like in for is or if for of and many more. Often they are the homonyms such as made and maid, lone and loan, or mail and male. Seems like all the electronic word processing spell checkers don’t catch these types of substitutions. Even the grammar ones don’t catch many of them.
I feel I have become so much more sensitized to this since I have been editing my own work. Yes, I have been using one of the spiffy editing word processing programs, one I even paid for! But, I am finding I have to still go over everything with a fine tooth comb. I think this is why I am so surprised to find so many copy editing errors in well known commercially published books. These are books that have been published internationally with well known authors going through the editing processes of well known publishing houses.
I have to say that I feel somewhat “smug” as it were as I have recently taken a few webinar courses from a few of the executive editors at a couple of these publishing houses. These webinars have been helpful and good learning experiences but the editors have been a might arrogant about their processes; so, I get a little frustrated when I am finding a few errors per chapter in a well known book from a well know publishing house. So, it goes to show that sew, sow, and so it goes with the editing regardless of who you are!