Re: Lukashenka (jara: Country names still needed)

Andreas wrote:

>I don't know what a "copy editor" is, but obviously some sort of guy
>supposed to
>catch mistakes in newspapers? That sort of people seems to've lost
>popularity at
>an alarming rate since computerized spelling checkers came into use[1]. It's
>perhaps better in the Anglophone world, but here media people tend
>to have quite
>hazy ideas of the non-western bits of the globe.
While it is a nitpicky, cross-the-t's-and-dot-the-i's kind of job, a
copy editor is more than just a glorified spell and grammar check (I
don't use spellcheck myself since at least versions of it that I've
encountered wouldn't catch an error like "mourning coffee break"
since "mourning" is a properly spelled word, just not the write word
hear [sic]; and grammar check? don't get me started...). Factual
errors also need to be caught (say, Colin Powell is inadvertently
listed as the Secretary of Defense), and appropriately placing the
"alleged(ly)'s" so that the newspaper isn't sued for libel. It would
seem to me that a copy editor worth his/her salt on the inside
"International Page" should have a least a passing familiarity with
certain spelling conventions of foreign names, or have access to
someone who does. I suppose deadlines impose on efficiency at times.

Kou