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Dear Ed archive

May 2009

Dear Ed

I found these typos pasted onto a page in the junk file in my filing cabinet when I started my new job. Would you like them?
Charlotte

Dear Charlotte

Thank you. It’s always nice to be on the receiving end of someone else’s junk, on the off-chance that I ever run out. I’ve assembled your examples into what Frank Moorhouse used to call a 'discontinuous narrative', although in this case it’s probably more discontinuous than narrative.

People who study dinosaurs are called pale entologists.

Ah, what a start! It immediately made me think of Alain de Botton. I could just picture him pontificating while using a fine brush to clean debris off the remains of a stegosaurus; surely that stegosaurus would have lived longer if only it had read Nietzsche? But then Nietzsche would have had to be a caveman and who knows where that would have taken mankind ...

fashion cone suers

Well, suers could be users - it’s a common-enough typo. You haven’t given me any context, so I'm guessing this is from a procedural text, something like Nefarious Pharmacology for Dummies. It's a possibility, but I suspect it's actually consumers minus the m, making fashion consumers. For every curse we hurl at spellchecks, we should offer up equal hosannas for keeping us entertained and in business.

Letters that are not written to a person well known to the writer are more formal in language.

I suspect the author has the equivalent of a foggy autumn morning inside his or her head. Alain de Botton will surely wander out of the fog any minute, wearing a very snazzy trench coat and discussing Nausea (which has to be the most aptly named book of all time). You can see what the author intended, at the same time as your head swivels 180º in search of meaning and you check for any other text that has come adrift from the fuselage and is about to loom out of the fog and knock you onto the floor. Lift the not and place it in front of well known and Bob’s your metaphorical uncle: you have some kind of meaning, if not the world's most elegant sentence.

duel flush toilets

D'Artagnan never had it so good. The bathroom accessory every fencer needs, allowing you to cope with the after-effects of last night's tarte aux pruneaux and defend yourself with a well-honed rapier at the same time.

That’s all for this month, I'm off to Bunnings to buy one of those duel-flush toilets before they sell out. If anyone else is emptying out their junk file, please send in the detritus (minus the fluff, paper clips and one-cent coins).

Happy trails

Dear Ed

We in-house eds take offence at the overly freelance-focused slant of your column, and in particular your assertion that freelance conditions are better than working in house. I’d like to offer a view from the other side.

10 great things about working in house.

There aren’t many places in the world that will ensure someone empties your bins, stocks the fridge with milk ***and*** vacuums.
When our computers break, we ring the IT department who come and fix it the same day.
We don’t live with the daily temptation of blowing off work to sit in our PJs and watch Dr Phil.
No-one assumes you are free for coffee/babysitting/a quick visit just because you happen to be home.
We don’t have to fight the kids for workspace.
No chasing invoices - 'nuff said.
Reading this newsletter is classed as training.
We don’t spend our time sucking up to clients - we save our sucking up for the authors.
When you struggle with some tricky grammar point there’s a whole group of eds in the building who will debate the point with you.
Meetings are a great way to catch up on sleep.

In-house and loving it

Dear In-house and loving it

Who's Dr Phil? Aren't PJs for working in? Seriously, it's hard to view things from in house when you're happily freelance. Comments welcome - from both sides of the fence.