A little crazy-making: Finished a long, long SF/alternate world novel Sunday. OK, not great, now have to go back to first in the series. BUT: One character named "Magda." About half the time, her name appears as "Madga." The book was presumably written using a computer, and published by one of the Big Four. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Which is to say: How does a semi-competent writer send in an ms. without even checking for something that easy to check for (the string "magda" does not appear anywhere other than in that name, AFAICT), and how does a big-publisher avoid even the most rudimentary copyediting/proofreading?
- walt crawford
(How bad was it? The Magda/Madga split would appear on the same page, sometimes in adjacent paragraphs.)
- walt crawford
It is called #valueadd. Was it ever changed to Mazda?
- Back to just Joe
That's pretty bad. I can see making the typo, and I can see not catching the typo if you're the author, but you'd think someone might have noticed.
- laura x
Joe: Cute, but apparently not. Laura: And it's not once or twice; I'd say the error (assuming "Madga" is the error) appears at least 50-60 times, maybe many more. Did I say *long* book?
- walt crawford
Given how often I type teh for the and Larua for Laura, as I said, I can see making the error that many times. No one picking up on it does seem odd.
- laura x
I've been reading so many eARCs that I am becoming inured to this kind of thing. But in a printed book, I think it would drive me crazy!
- RudĩϐЯaЯïan
I'm writing the short story where so far I've spelled the main character's name three different ways. But yanno, I *noticed* and eventually I'll do a find/replace and fix that.
- Deborah Fitchett
It was particularly noticeable because it's set in 17th century Europe, and while "Magda" (prob. short for Magdalena) is a perfectly reasonable name, "Madga" sticks out like a sore heretic.
- walt crawford