Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1907-04-05
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TROUBLES OF A PRooFREADER

TROUBLES OF A PRooFREADER,
Somebody Abuses Him No Matter
What He Does.
Pity the poor proofreader! He, OF
all men the loneliest. No man is his
friend. Dire disasters daily are in
voked upon his head. Muttered i'm
precautions nightly are his unenviable
portion. Never Of him has it been
said that his lines are cast in pleas
ant places. He is despised and for
saken by all his fellows, the most is
olated of mortals.
Fancy picture" this? Not a bit
Of it. If that's the way your nina
is working, gentle reader, then stay,
let this humble scribe beseech you,
stay thy thoughts Hunt up, II you
will, Mr.. H. J. Moroso. Ask him to
tell you about the lot Of the proof
reader. What he doesn't know about
| 1t Is not worth knowing. For-well,
so many years that hardly anybody
|
he began-"Jeff" Moroso has read
proof for the News & Courier and the
Sunday News. He knows all the ins
and outs Of the business He has
prided himself on maintaining the
high reputation won by the paper half
century or more ago of being one
of the "cleanest" geographically Of
any in the country. The paper bears
testimony daily to his vigilance and
his ability.
What "Jeff" Moroso Says.
Ask him then, to tell you about the
fortunes Of the man who reads the
proof Maybe-for he is a very, very
modest mamie will decline. Never
theless, Jeff" says-and this is
straight-that If the real, true-true
Characterization Of the proofreader's
estate were put into print the shock
to the public would be such that be-
side it that produced by the publica-
ton of the unabridged reports Of the
Thaw trial would pale into insignifi-
canoe.
Not many folks outside a newspaper
office know much about proofreaders.
Ask any man who has ever travelled
for daily and he will tell you that
its readers manifest generally the
keenest interest in the personnel Of
it's staff and in the individual work
performed by each Of them. The
man on the road has to explain daily
who 1t is writes the editorials, who
writes the pert paragraphs, who
does the headlining, who is in charge
Of the city work, who handles the
book reviews, who does this and who
does that.
Rare, indeed, however, is the man
who manifests an interest in the iden-
tity Of the proofreader. And yet he
is one Of the most important Of all
those who take part in the making
of the newspaper Few Of the papers
workers would be sooner missed
That, perhaps, Is the secret Of the
whole thing. Nobody notices the alb
sence Of dust on the city's streets; but
If those streets ara allowed to go un-
swept every man, woman and child,
every living thing, in fact, bears un-
flattering testimony to the fact that
no street sweepers have passed that
way.
Newspapers Safety Valve.
The proofreader is to the newspa-
per what the safety valve is to the
steam engine. Unless the safety valve
allows the steam to escape at the
right place there will be an explosion
at the wrong place. Unless the proof
reader clears a proof Of errors Of va
rious kinds and characters there Is
just as likely as not to be something
doing" the next day, when it is too
late to mend things
But the proofreader does more than
merely correct mistakes. He is the
conservator of the papers style. Ev-
cry newspaper that amounts to any
thing has its own peculiar "style," that
is to say its own way Of spelling, Of
capitalizing, of punctuating, etc. The
proofreader stands guard at this end
Of the line. 1t Is true that CORES
pondents and reporters are supposed
to know the papers style and to con-
form to it, and that the editors and
copy readers are to see to 1t that the
copy goes out in proper shape. But
they don't 1t has even been whis-
pered that it is not every great editor
who knows how to spell. One, to par
ticularize, has even been said to get
his own name wrong at times. The
printers too, the men who set the
type, are expected to familiarize them
selves with the papers ways and to
carry them out. But printers as a
rule are a nomadic lot. This, hap
ply is not the case on the News &
Courier. It's employees are all fix
lures. Nor Is 1t the case generally to
so great an extent as before the ad-
vent of the Mergenthaler machines.
But the rowing blood with which they
were long ago inoculated still mani
| tests itself too frequently to trust here
the conservation of the papers style.
The proofreader is the only man
through whose hands everything pass
es, who reads every day every line
that goes in the paper. To him and
to him alone can this important mat
ter be trusted.
What the Compositor Doesn't Like.
Perhaps. dear reader, blissfully un-
informed, you deem this an easy task.
You were never more mistaken. Sup
pose, for instance. the compositor
spells the word programme" without
the me" whereas the style Of the
paper is to include it. The proofread-
er marks in the omitted letters. Sup
pose the compositor begins the word
government" with a small "g" when
according to the style Of the paper 1t
should have been upper case" or a
capital letter. The proofreader makes
the change There may be a dozen
such changes. For every one Of them