A quiz for aspiring editors

Pamela Hewitt

So you think you know all about editing? Test your knowledge and feel free to have a good time while you're at it. As promised last week, here are the answers.

A kern is

• a Scottish hut
• a grain used in Swedish breakfast food
• spacing between letters
• spacing between paragraphs
• a composer of musical comedies

A kern is the spacing between letters. It developed in the days of hot metal printing and continues to this day with electronic printing technology. Only the more sophisticated word processing software allows for kerning.

Stet means

• let it stand
• so be it
• and so on
• province, in Afrikaans
• to keep within limits

Stet means let it stand in Latin. It’s a standard proofing and copyediting mark to ‘undo’ a change made in error.

Which word(s) are spelt correctly?

• supersede
• accomodation
• neccessarily
• seperately
• desicate

Only supersede is correct. The others should be accommodation, necessarily, separately and desiccate.

A widow is

• a typo for a glassed-in section of a wall
• a broken paragraph with the first line at the foot of a page
• a broken paragraph with the last line at the top of a page

A widow is a broken paragraph with the last line at the top of a page. It's easy to remember because a widow ends up alone.

Author-date is used

• when referring to writers whose best work is behind them
• when Vancouver or documentary note is not house style
• to give readers the author’s date of birth under the copyright and ISBN information
• in secret editors’ code to refer to a derivative manuscript

Author-date is used when Vancouver or documentary note is not the house style. These are all systems for citation used in footnotes and endnotes.

A literal is

• a typographical error
• part of the coastline
• someone who doesn’t understand subtlety

A literal is a typographical error.

As you know, Bob, refers to

• the phrase that, in the 1930s, developed into ‘Bob’s your uncle’
• an info dump in fiction writing
• an ingratiating opening statement made by a hopeful author to a publisher.

As you know, Bob, refers to an info dump in fiction. This is when information needed to understand the plot is provided in dialogue in a way that is unnatural and awkward. (‘As you know, Bob, the time travelling machine was invented in the early twenty-second century, allowing people to move backwards and forwards in history.’)

Shovelware is

• a section of garden supply shop
• a trade name for coffee table books on gardening
• print material transferred uncritically to the web

Shovelware is print material transferred uncritically to the web.

Link rot is

• degeneration of the patella
• a broken hypertext connection
• appalling nonsense masquerading as logic in academic texts

Link rot is a broken hypertext connection.

The @ symbol is known as

• the snail
• the elephant’s trunk
• the monkey's tail
• the little mouse

All of them are correct. In French, Italian, Hebrew and Korean the symbol is called the snail, in Danish it’s the elephant’s trunk, in Dutch the monkey’s tail and in Chinese it’s known as the little mouse. Other names are the cat’s foot (Swedish) and the little dog (Russian). English has no name other than the description, ‘at sign’ . The Cambridge Guide to English Usage calls it ‘a symbol in search of a name'.

© Pamela Hewitt 2006

www.emendediting.com

You can find the answers to all these questions (and many, many more) in Emend Editing courses.