Upside, downside

[aadler]

There’s an author I recently discovered. I like his work quite a bit. I’ve read two series by him, two or three independent works, and a number of short stories. A few didn’t quite enthuse me, but in general I enjoy what he writes and find lots of good lines — and effective turns of events — in his work

However.

He keeps making what I consider to be obvious, easily avoidable errors.

The most frequent is saying ‘discrete’ (individually separate and distinct) when he clearly means ‘discreet’ (careful and circumspect in one’s speech or actions).

The most inexcusable is using ‘lead’ instead of ‘led’ (for the past tense of ‘lead’). Yes, ‘lead’ CAN be pronounced “ledd” … if you’re talking about the element, or the graphite compound used to fill a pencil. Otherwise, it’s wrong, and I genuinely can’t understand why people can’t see it’s wrong like being hit in the face with a mallet.

He also uses ‘staunch’ for ‘stanch’, but that one is now listed as a recognized variant in the dictionary … because so many people fvcked it up, for so long, that the wrong usage became part of common usage.

Finally, he had a character say, “Don’t doddle” in a context that made it clear the word should be ‘dawdle’.

He’s a good writer. I honestly envy him his energy and ability. But why can’t he devote some of that to not continually repeating the same errors?

Nobody knows the pain in my life.

Comments

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

My constant problem - if a story/author is really good, do I risk angering them (or hurting their feelings) by pointing out glaring errors, or do I just not bother and gnash my teeth?

[aadler]

And — which I may not have made clear — this guy is professionally published. Shouldn’t there be somebody, somewhere, pointing out this stuff?

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Indeed there should! However, I don't think copy editors are much in use anymore. I haven't had any work from the small company I worked for (free lance, not salaried) in a very long time. They used to put every book through several layers of edits and end with a proofreader, but I think that was very expensive and they had to change it over time. I'm pretty sure some publishers don't even bother with putting actual eyes on a book. Too much reliance on auto-correct or Word.