The Savannah morning news., 1902-04-29
THE PROOFREADEIs.
A Sermon on His Misdeeds, with
Some Picturesque Examples.


Andrew Lang, in the London Morn
ing Post.
OF old the proofreader was, and oc-
casionally he still is, the authors best
ally. The author, knowing what he
intends to say, and reading in proof
sheets his own work, of which, perhaps
he is passing weary, finds there, by
kind of illusion, what he knows ought
to be there, and passes his proof sheet.
But very often what ought to be in
the printed sheet is not there, but
something very unlike it, printer
error. This is especially apt to hap
pen where dates in Arabic numerals
are concerned. know very well when
the Earl of Morton was beheaded: it
was in 1881. The printer probably
does not know, and prints 1881. Being
sure of my fact, the error of a single
figure escapes my eye till l see my
/ book published. And then my lam
guage is proportionate to my distress.
1t is on points like this that the proof
reader used to be, and sometimes is,
SO serViceable. An educated and ac-
curate man. he noticed the misprints
and noticed the grammar, and OBJ
securities in expression and everything
else which the author ought to have
corrected, but had left standing. No
body but a good professional proofread-
err. can really read proof sheets prop
erly; the author is too familiar with
what he meant to say and thought he
had said; the authors friends are Oft
en- too busy, or too lazy, to be very
careful, and so, without a good proof
reader a book goes forth in a sloVenly
condition. 1t is not the fault of the
compositors; they are not specialists
and when they have made a word out
of the authors scrawl they naturally
make it So" though the word may
have no meaning, or the wrong mean
ing, in the context
l take up a paper devoted entirely
to literature, a weekly literary paper.
l find an author complaining that, in
his last weeks essay or letter he
wrote the tortures of their prisoners
and 10, he finds in print the futures
of their prisoners" He wrote there is
truth in the converse" of a certain
proposition, but he reads in print there
is truth in the universe" Now, the
compositor, accustomed to reading
the most singular statements never
blenched at the remark that there is
truth in the universe" Doubtless there
is as a matter of fact. But an editor or
a proofreader ought to have seen that
the large generalization about the ex-
istence Of truth in the universe did not
make sense, and he ought to have
seen copy" If he could not coniec-
ture the real reading. Once l quoted
in daily paper long ago Mr.. Brown
ing's Just for a handful of silver he
left US" This appeared in public as
Just for a handle of silver he
left US" I complained to the gentle
man who was doing editorial duty: |
said everybody know that quotation,
and that handle of silver" was not
sense. He said that he did not know
the quotation, and that he did not ex-
pect sense from Mr. Browning In
fact, the quotation being nonsense as
it stood, no doubt he took that for
proof that as it was from Browning, It
was correctly printed. Now, the right
sort OF proofreader would have correct
ed the misprint, as the author of the
article saw no proofs. In the same
number Of the same exclusively liter
airy paper ! read: I'VE can only say
that.having men from Father Gerard's
book. with" etc. I'VE have his adj
versary's reply with our uprooted no