You know you're an editor when someone asks whether "anyone's familiar with Chicago" and your first thought is The Chicago Manual of Style, not the city.
Granted, this question was in a group of editors, but I still laughed at myself.
A haunted house for editors: zombie rules, hills that editors have died on, manuscripts that suck the life out of you, ghosts of uncaught errors past, and people who insist something's wrong when it's really a style choice.
@RedPenRabbit@edibuddies Authors who promise they'll get it to you "first thing tomorrow," manuscript files encrypted so you can't open them (for "safety"), clients that go out of business without paying you.
I find it very rude that an author would write something in their story that makes me cry while I'm trying to proofread their novel. It's hard enough to check for typos, bad breaks, layout issues, and the like when it's not through tear-filled eyes.
I haven't tracked the hours, but I'm pretty sure that ever since I became a freelancer, I've spent half my work days staring at my calendar and thinking either "Oh no, there's a gap in my schedule" or "Oh no, what have I done?"
I love it when something I learned in a previous edit comes in handy. I just queried the use of "poisonous" where "venomous" seemed more appropriate, which I had learned about years ago for another edit, and I may or may not have squeed when I spotted it this time.
FYI:
venomous = toxins are injected
poisonous = toxins are ingested
Bite, sting, or barb? Venomous.
Dangerous to eat or touch? Poisonous.
It bites you, you die = Venomous
You bite it, you die = Poisonous
It bites someone else, you die = Correlation
You bite it, someone else dies = voodoo
Everybody gets bitten, nobody dies = kinky
AI is a problem for editors and authors – and it's serious.
There is a dark side to this technology, with major long-term consequences for authorship and editorial work that we're only just beginning to discover – not least copyright theft.
IIRC the difference between Bing's integrated AI and others is that it cites actual sources from the search engine, so it's less prone to inaccuracy/hallucination?
Is there currently any facility within search engines to opt out or deactivate AI, or is it built-in as standard, requiring consent to use it?
And does it train itself from searches? Happy for more info!
So I started a medical editing class this afternoon & I tried so hard not to fall asleep on Zoom.
It wasn't because the subject matter was boring or anything like that. I'm starting to think it's because I had the anxiety of "I don't understand everything immediately, so that means I'm a failure" set in during/after the class.
I hate how I react to any change in my life. It's like this has gotten worse after getting diagnosed as AuDHD.
@yourautisticlife@actuallyautistic Thankfully, the teacher does give a few breaks (since it's a 3 hour class,) but even then that's not enough time for me to decompress. 😩
While reviewing artwork for a children's picture book, I found inverted clothing patterns and limbs, missing background colors, perspective issues, thought bubbles that should be speech bubbles, errant lines, and layout problems.
@RedPenRabbit@edibuddies My best-ever catch as a copy editor was in a cover photo for a special section. Image showed a designer in his studio. Behind him: a wall covered with art and sketches and tons of other stuff. One of the sketches: five naked men mounting each other.