* Decades ago, wearying of work in bars and restaurants and at a loss as to what to do with my life but realizing I needed to do I recall having a conversation with an author friend and wondering, vaguely, whether there might be something I could do in publishing, about which I knew, well, nothing. He, very nicely, suggested that I check in with the production editor who supervised his books. Assuming, given my friendship with her exceptionally punctilious author, that I must be at least half intelligent—a daring assumption but, for me, a lucky one—she took a flyer and agreed to give me a proofreading job.
Not a test. A job. (Yes, the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
) I’ll always recall our conversation. “Do you have a copy of Merriam-Webster’s ?” “Yes,” I said. “Do you know the proofreading symbols?” “Absolutely,” I lied.
“Do you have a copy of ?” “I’ll get one,” I promised. What a revelation that chunky orange volume was! What a treasure map leading to all sorts of things I, with my at best spotty suburban education in the English language, vaguely knew, vaguely knew but couldn’t name, didn’t know at all. Heavy on the last.
How marvelously definitive, how bracingly steadying, how comfortingly helpful. I used to sit and read it as if it were the latest scorchingly thrilling bestseller. Learning to proofread and, eventually, copyedit by the seat of my pants, literal on-the-job training (augmented by that produc.