More specifically, what happened to copy or sub-editors? You know, those people in book publishing who used to check spelling, grammar etc before the book was published. I’ve complained in the past about sloppiness over the misuse of words like ‘crescendo’ which should be picked up by somebody during the publishing process: I came across a misused ‘crescendo’ in the newest Anne Zouroudi Greek Detective novel this week – it was followed on the next page by the equally enraging and equally common misuse of ‘begged the question’ instead of ‘raised the question’. I quote the Guardian stylebook:

begs the question

A tricky one, best avoided since it is almost invariably misused: it means assuming a proposition that, in reality, involves the conclusion. An example would be to say that parallel lines will never meet because they are parallel, assuming as a fact the thing you are professing to prove. What it does not mean is ‘raises the question’

It seems that more and more frequently, a pedantic reader (I admit it) will be irritated by careless spelling errors – the latest Jacqueline Winspear novel makes a lot of use of the words ‘practice’ (the noun) and ‘practise’ (the verb). Someone – author, editor? – has made sure it is always spelt with an ‘s’, whether it is being used as a verb or as a noun. That was one fairly glaring mistake – others are less obvious but still niggling. 

In the new Jim Kelly we find ‘he was sat’ and then, later, ‘ Valentine was sat’ – surely it should be ’Valentine sat’ or ‘ was sitting’? Wondering if I was being too fussy, I asked someone else, who remarked that ‘he was sat’ sounded as though the person had been made to sit……..

 Another pet hate, though it’s nothing to do with editing (although I wish someone in the publishing process would point out to authors how annoying the practice can become), is the now customary method of injecting urgency and tension into a narrative by using lots of short, choppy sentences. Without verbs. (Kathy Reichs and Jonathan Kellerman take this to extremes):

Frost cascaded onto my hand.

I stared at it, remembering Ryan’s flip answer.

Water.

Expansion.

Cracking.

Ping!

I flew to the phone.

( Kathy Reichs Devil Bones)

I now realise that all these complaints refer to crime novels – perhaps the editors and proofreaders get so carried away by the mysteries, they forget to check the grammar… It’s a shame to have to complain about good, stylish writers like Anne Zouroudi, but with the recent movement towards considering crime writing as a serious branch of literature surely it’s time the publishers started to take more care over the editing process?

See also Crescendo watch and If you don’t know what it means, don’t use it