SOME PRACTICAL CRITICISM FOR PROOF-READERS.
A periodical highly esteemed in literary circles, in reviewing a book,
said: “The proof-reading is so bad that we infer that its author
could not have seen the proofs.” The publishers of the book do their
own printing, and probably think their proof-reading is as good as
possible, though they may realize that it is not as good as it should
be. Many employers have had trying experiences in their efforts to
secure good proof-readers, and such experience may have operated in
favor of poor workmen, through sheer discouragement of their employers.
An inference that “its author could not have seen the proofs,” while
possibly natural, is hasty; for, while many authors examine their
proofs carefully, and are reasonably quick to perceive and correct
errors, most authors are not good proof-readers.
Errors in print were quite as common as they now are when “following
copy” was common, as it was in New York, for instance, about thirty
years ago. One of the best offices in which a man could set type was
Alvord’s, flourishing at the time mentioned. In it the compositor
measured for his bill absolutely everything for which a customer paid,
be it a cut, a blank page, or anything else. There, likewise, he was
seldom called upon to change a letter or a point except to make it
like his copy. Certain large offices in New York now are like Alvord’s
only in the fact that their proof-reading is not good--and the authors
see most of the proofs. In one important matter these offices are
utterly unlike Alvord’s--no compositor can earn decent wages in them.
Employers are largely responsible for the common poorness of our
proof-reading, because they have not recognized the real nature of the
work, and have insisted upon classing it as mechanical. Proof-reading
will never be what it should be until the proof-reader ranks with
the editor both in importance and in pay. With no more pay than that
of the good compositor, and sometimes with less than the first-class
compositor’s pay, the proof-reader’s position will not be adequately
filled. Properly qualified proof-readers seldom remain long at the
reading-desk, because they can and will do better elsewhere.
Something should be done to keep the best readers as such, for they are
all climbing up into other fields of labor where they find stronger
inducements, both in credit and in pay. Even in the case of our large
dictionaries and encyclopædias, almost every one of which is decidedly
bettered by the work of some one special proof-reader, there is little
acknowledgment of the fact, and so there is little encouragement for
the proof-reader to remain a proof-reader.
No one is surely fit to be trusted with proof-reading on particular
work without having learned by practical experience. The best
proof-readers must have as a foundation a natural aptitude, and they
should have at least a good common education; but even these are not
sufficient without practical training. One of the poorest compositors
on a New York morning paper was very helpful in the proof-room
occasionally, while some of the best compositors were not so good
at reading. It is undeniable that printers themselves make the best
proof-readers when to their technical knowledge they add scholarship.
A first-class compositor is worthy of special favor, and generally gets
it. A maker-up or a stone-hand who works well and quickly, or sometimes
even one who does excellent work without great speed, is a treasure.
Compositor, maker-up, and stone-hand, however, all do work that must
be examined and corrected by the reader; and of course that reader is
best who can also do any or all of the other work. What is said of
the reader’s qualifications is not altogether theoretical; it is all
in line with the practical needs of every good proof-room, and every
employer wants a good proof-room.
The correction of the evil, which is certainly a desideratum, may
be secured eventually in one way, and that way is the one necessary
for authors as well as proof-readers. We need improved methods of
general education. We need more general training and development
of the thinking power. Seldom indeed do even our greatest thinkers
reason sufficiently. No amount of argument could prove this assertion
beyond question, but some examples will serve a good purpose as an
object-lesson.
One of our most prominent philologists, a man of great learning,
addressed a meeting of scholars, speaking strongly in favor of what
he calls “reformed” spelling--which would be re-formed indeed, but is
not yet proved to be entitled to the epithet “reformed.” Here is one
of his assertions: “One-sixth of the letters on a common printed page
are silent or misleading. Complete simplification would save one-sixth
of the cost of books.” Of course, he must have meant the cost of
printing. Even with one-sixth less work in printing, very nearly the
old cost of binding would remain, if not all of it; and any sort of
good binding is no small item in the cost of a book. But one-sixth of
the space occupied by the print would seldom be saved by the omission
of one-sixth of the letters. The magazine article containing the report
of the address is printed with the proposed new spelling. There is
not a line in it that shows omission of one-sixth of the letters now
commonly used in its words. One line in a paragraph of seven lines has
“batl” for “battle,” and if the two missing letters had been inserted
the word “the” might have been driven over into the next line; but the
total effect on the paragraph of all possible changes would have been
nothing--the same number of lines would be necessary for it. Certainly
the assertion that one-sixth would be saved was not sufficiently
thoughtful.
A recent pretentious work on the English language and English grammar
(by Samuel Ramsey) would afford an example of loose thinking from
almost any of its 568 pages. A few only need be given here. As to
Danish influence on early English speech, it is said that “the
general effect ... was to shorten and simplify words that were long
or of different utterance, and dropping or shortening grammatical
forms.” It should have been easy for the author to perceive that this
sentence was not well constructed; and what can be worse in a book on
grammar than an ungrammatical sentence? We are told that a feature of
English construction due to French influence is “the placing of the
adjective after the noun, or giving it a plural form--_sign manual,
Knights Templars_.” No English adjective ever has the plural form,
and _Templars_ is rightly pluralized simply because it is a noun.
“No grammar will help us to distinguish the _lumbar_ region from
the _lumber_ region,” Mr. Ramsey says. But grammar does help us by
teaching us that _lumbar_ is an adjective and _lumber_ a noun. In
careful speech accent would indicate the difference, which should be
indicated in writing by joining the elements of the second term as
a compound--_lumber-region_. In a chapter of “Suggestions to Young
Writers,” the advice is given, “Let all your words be English, sound
reliable English, and nothing but English; and when you speak of a
spade call it by its name, and when you mean _hyperæsthesia_, say so.”
If a young writer “says so” by using the word instanced, will he use
“nothing but English”?
Lord Tennyson is reported to have said: “I do not understand English
grammar. Take _sea-change_. Is _sea_ here a substantive used
adjectively, or what? What is the logic of a phrase like _Catholic
Disabilities Annulling Bill_? Does _invalid chair maker_ mean that the
chair-maker is a sickly fellow?” But Tennyson showed plainly in his
writing, by making compounds of such terms as _sea-change_, that he
felt, at least, that _sea_ is not used adjectively, as “adjectively”
is commonly understood. He must have thought that the phrase whose
logic he asked for is wholly illogical and bad English, for he never
wrote one like it. His own writing would never have contained the
three separate words “invalid chair maker”; he would have made it
“invalid chair-maker” (or chairmaker) for the sense he mentions, and
“invalid-chair maker” if he meant “a maker of chairs for invalids.”
Tennyson certainly used English words well enough to justify the
assumption that he knew English grammar passing well.
George P. Marsh, in a lecture on the English language, said that
“_redness_ is the name of a color,” and John Stuart Mill made a similar
assertion about _whiteness_ in his book on “Logic.” Very little thought
is necessary for the decision that neither _redness_ nor _whiteness_ is
the name of a color, though each of the words includes such a name.
It is not fashionable nowadays to conclude with a moral, but this
occasion is especially enticing, and here is the moral: Every
proof-reader who cares for real success in his profession should
cultivate the thinking habit, and learn not to jump to a conclusion.