True, Kent (and Joy) ----- those of us with an eye for
language in text often get riled when we find errors in
others' work, esp when we are reading for Entertainment
(rather than for a paycheck).
When I read for a book review, or read as research toward an
interview, I always have a section in my notes titled
"Typos". Just can't help it... ;)
I also note Textual Incoherency -- such as you describe, with
the misuse of the term "Caught Stealing".
Reminds me of a similar plot-dependent authorial error in an
SF novel, THE HERCULES TEXT by Jack McDevitt (his
first-published book). This was back in the early 90s, iirc,
and the big finish to the plot was Our Hero "erasing" the
only copy of a CD-rom of Alien Radio Signals by magnetizing
it! Ooooops....
Great eyes, folks -- keep up the good work!
---------------ap.
"T. Kent Morgan" <
tkmorgan@shaw.ca> wrote: Joy wrote in reply to my post
about the mistakes on page 7 of Huston's
Caught Stealing turning me off.
"No, Kent, you aren't the only one. It happens to me
all the time. When I
trip over dumb mistakes in newspapers, I often send off
a letter to the
editor, but in books, it's too much trouble to figure
out where to complain.
My excuse is that I copyedit for a living."
Joy, I also edited as a major part of my job in
educational communications
and know how mistakes can still be made. Taking the
oopposite position, I
co-wrote a twice weekly sports column in a daily paper
for four years and
always dreaded my first look at the "finished" product,
i.e., what those
editors did to it and got wrong. In the case of Caught
Stealing, my biggest
problem was the author writing the baseball passage
about caught stealing,
the book's title, and not knowing what the term meant.
At least I don't
think he would have written it the way he did if he did
know.
Kent Morgan
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