Chark Blog - Spelling and all that

Friday, August 25, 2006

I know that this blog sometimes has spelling mistakes - mea culpa. I do try to eliminate them but I type badly and fast and make mistakes. Does it matter? Yes, it upsets me. We are a publishing company and should know how to spell and we should care about getting things right all the time. More importantly (and even more importantly in a computer age where successful searching by and large depends on accurate spelling) bad spelling causes problems.

For instance roughly half of Macmillan's internal reports used to spell Ottakers (sic). Which meant that to find out the total Ottakars sales you had to search on both spellings. It's also a bit insulting billing a customer twice because we can't decide how to spell him/her. Of course this is now a lot easier,although is it Waterstones or Waterstone's?

However, that is nothing compared to the horror I found on the main Macmillan website this morning (which I hope will be corrected by the time you read this):

Picador celebrates the inclusion of two of it's authors on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006 Longlist

It was like a knife to my heart. Can everyone in Macmillan please learn the difference between it's and its - please. And if the rest of the world would follow suit I'd be a happier guy. Or is this yet another sign of fast-approaching grumpy old bookman-itis? Aaaargh.

8/25/2006 8:45:49 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

You're quite right - the constant variations on a theme people used when trying to spell Ottakar's did drive us up the wall. Ottakers was, and remains, the most common. Autocars the most apocryphal, and O'HaHars the weirdest.

Ottakid

8/25/2006 8:53:43 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I think perhaps much of the problem is that online changing mistakes is so much easier and therefore spelling mistakes can be considered temporary rather than permanent.

The power of online errors being easy to change and not forgetting to mention Spellcheck and Office Applications making documents easier to correct before printing has changed the way we think about spelling and accuracy.

How often now do most people write letters on paper anymore? Mistakes on paper are time-expensive, you either have to start again or somehow cover over the error. As the costs of errors (timewise) tumbles to nothing or little online or on computer the value of first time accuracy diminishes too!

Well thats my take!
Eoin

Eoin Purcell

8/25/2006 10:34:22 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

But congratulations on the books anyway!

Lynne

8/25/2006 11:05:28 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I agree with all the above but I think there's a difference between a lazily-produced literal(which may be the result of the ability to spell-check etc) and 'it's' which is the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of punctuation and probably grammar too.
And Lynne, thanks for the congrats - I wholly agree with you and Grayling about Howard Jacobson - http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/.

richard charkin

8/25/2006 4:23:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

(And I thought IT was a new imprint!)
I use the spellchecker, but wonder if it really helps me. I do worry that it makes me lazy. And it will not highlight bass when I meant to say base (in my setup, anyway).
At primary school someone wrote in my autograph book (remember them?) "if you have nothing to say, say nothing".
Today we have the www,SKY TV repeating the news every 10 minutes, and we all have to say something just so that people know we are still here.
The secret is surely to know what you want to say and say it concisely and accurately.
"if you have nothing to say, say nothing".
And try to understand that punctuation is logical, Mr Spock.

Cory Voigt

8/25/2006 6:00:30 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I have spent the last 6 months correcting it`s and its on successive typescripts of an author whose book I am publishing and who SHOULD KNOW BETTER in view of the expense of her education. But it`s an uphill struggle - and yet, as I keep saying, it isn't difficult, really it isn`t... I don`t mind about wrong spelling as much as I mind about that. There are one or two words I can never spell.. like profession (always have to stop and think about the ffs and sss ),. But I do not think I have got an it`s or an its wrong in 60 years. There is something to be said for a convent schooling after all.

SUSAN HILL

8/25/2006 8:50:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

The GSCE results were out yesterday and so many passed with good grades and so many got A* - all the very best to each and every one of them - I hope they do well in their careers and life, I really do.

But what of the standard of English Grammar tought today? I had an insight in the 70s that was pounded in but did not feel obligatory, even though I remained of Mrs R for every lesson. I now remain insecure and I seek a dictionary, or similar, whenever I make a post or comment. I want to get it right.

Not like those of age under 35 who don't give a damn. They know no different, they just write. For years, I've had reports presented to me that don't care because they (the authors) don't know otherwise. I've corrected and explained and fell on deaf ears.

School is what hits the formative key and moulds it. It's about time that "education, education, education" removed itself from the hyperbole of spin and did an honest deed. I wait in hope. As I have done for years now.

crimeficreader

8/26/2006 1:50:57 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

crimeficreader,

In my business the willful ignorance of basic writing standards is a huge problem. I've heard from publishers who get 20,000 word manuscripts from published authors that are fundamentally unreadable. (And we're not talking Alan Moore here.)

Then you have young artists of talent, who consider even the most constructive advice you can provide a vicious assault upon their very souls.

Whenever I picture the Circle of False Councilors in Hell, I see it as a complex grealy expanded from its original state, the better to hold everyone who promoted that "self-esteem" crap while living.

Alan Kellogg

8/26/2006 8:33:24 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

-off topic-

Anybody in the British book publishing industry care to answer this fellow's (http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=6212929&postcount=48) objections regarding the economics there of? Keep in mind the industry standard in physical dimension is A paper.

-/off topic-

Alan Kellogg

8/26/2006 8:35:25 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I spent a lot of time explaining it's and its to a very bright friend. 'But,'he said, 'apostrophe s denotes possession.' I had to sympathise. He only got it when, in desperation, I said, 'Look, you don't write hi's, do you? Well, not unless you're a certain sort of science fiction author and then it would be the name of an evil priest. If you can switch its for his and still make sense, there's no apostrophe.'

I think a lot of under 35s do give a damn, but it is not an easy subject to get to grips with as an adult. (I've just co-written a guide to punctuation for adults for exactly that reason.)

They also have to contend with a sophisticated, and frequently charming, anti-athoritarian lobby. For example, on last week's Desert Isalnd Disks A A Gill said, "It's about other people owning the language."

And, Susan Hill, I so agree about blind-spot words. I CAN spell necessary - but only if I take it very slowly and remember to breathe.

Jenny Haddon

8/26/2006 4:44:20 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

I get large numbers of e-mails from students doing my books for GCSE and A Level - sometimes rather intelligent ones. Almost none of them can spell except those from overseas. Students in places like Singapore and Hong Kong never make a spelling mistake.
But in the last year of his University Professorship, before he retired my husband Stanley Wells spent some time patiently explaining it`s/its to a PH.D (sic) student. And when he had finished she said, ' Does it matter ?'

SUSAN HILL

8/27/2006 12:46:51 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

PHD Student,

It matters child, it matters. Knowing the difference means getting your PHD and a career in your chosen field. Not knowing the difference means a part time job at McDonalds.

Alan Kellogg

8/27/2006 9:15:36 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Mr Kellogg,

You say "In my business the willful ignorance of basic writing standards is a huge problem..."

But the last time we crossed comments on here, you were keen to emphasise that you lived life as a scrounger of some sort?

Please enlighten me so that I can understand!

Only then can I come back with some interesting commnent!

crimeficreader

8/28/2006 7:30:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

Call it more a "field of interest". It's only been around since 1973, has a cash flow in the millions, and usually involves people meeting around a table to kill things and take their stuff. That last in the imaginary sense.

I'm on disability thanks to clinical depression. Thanks to another's good fortune (she made $50,000.00US off a dotcom start up and gave me $1,000.00US of it) I bought this iMac of mine, secured Net access, and in due time web space and a blog. My current version thereof started up in March of this year.

The industry I speak of is small, everybody knows everybody else, and real talent tends to be scarce and spread thin. The best is damn good. The worst would have trouble getting exposure in a bad amateur lit 'zine.

That said, it should be noted that without this industry and all the computer geeks who've taken part in it over the years, the Internet would be a very different creature.

Were it not for people like us the Flying Spagheti Monster would still be only boiled noodles and tomato sauce splattered on a suburban kitchen wall. :)

Alan Kellogg

8/30/2006 12:44:59 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)

For crimeficreader and anybody else interested,

http://www.enworld.org/index.php

That is, in my opinion, probably the best introduction to the subject. Be sure to check out the (numerous) forums. To post you do need to register (free, no spam). The participants are more than happy to answer any questions you have.

We return you know to our regularly scheduled comment thread.

Alan Kellogg

Welcome

This is it. I am officially entering the blogosphere. This is not a Macmillan blog, but Macmillan will certainly feature heavily. The idea is that when we need to share anything from company strategy through news, to talk about new ideas or to help us learn from our successes and our mistakes, we can all blog about it here. This means no more email newsletters from me. Instead, you can read (and blog) all about it here. And don't forget to bookmark this page and to let colleagues know all about it.

The broader the audience the more effective this blog becomes.

And it becomes a lot more interesting if you join the conversation... so don't be shy.

Google Ads

Charchive

November 2009

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat