If you've been reading the newsletter, or otherwise keeping your finger on the pulse, you will know that the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE) has been renamed the Institute of Professional Editors (IPE). The first major objective of the institute will be to implement the accreditation system which we voted on at the end of last year.
Before that or anything else of substance can happen, however, IPE must become a formal, registered, incorporated body. But what sort of body? A working group of the institute has prepared a paper canvassing the various options. You can read the paper on the society's website or at <www.case-editors.org>.
We will discuss these issues at our August meeting, as will all the other Australian societies of editors at similar meetings or workshops. The form of the national body will affect the future of both individual editors and the profession as a whole.
You should do your very best to take part in this discussion on Wednesday, 31 August, in the Friends Lounge of the National Library at 6.00 for 6.30 pm. And, as usual, to enjoy the fellowship of your colleagues over a glass of wine.
- Next meeting: The IPE - what's in it for you?
- From the President
- IPE notes
- Outgoing presidential address
- Minding my p's and q's
- Track changers with Cathy Nicoll
- Thinking about words
- The Fine Print
- Occasional series on Australian editors
- Training news
- Une soirée formidable…
- New members
- Copyright and deadlines
This is an exciting time for professional editors.
This year we need to seize two major opportunities: bedding down a system of accreditation that will establish nation wide our place as professionals; and assisting at the birth of the Institute of Professional Editors. I look forward to working with you to realise these opportunities - and our society needs your help to do that. So please come to our next meeting, to share your views and to become better informed about accreditation and how it will affect all of us.
At our Annual General Meeting last month, many of us were encouraged to hear the ideas from the floor about how we can do things better within the society: how to attract more members to meetings; how to increase participation in training sessions; how to entice new members to join; in short, how to get more people involved. These are issues that we'll be exploring in more depth, I hope, at the first meeting of your new committee. To those of you who spoke to your ideas at the meeting - please follow through by writing brief proposals we can consider.
Do remember that committee meetings are open to all members, so do come along when you can, even if you feel unable at this time to join the committee in a specific role.
I'm sure I speak for all of us in expressing our gratitude to the immediate past president, Claudia Marchesi, for her work over the last two years in this job, and to those other office-holders who are retiring this year after giving sterling service. My thanks also to all those committee members who have elected to stay on this year; as a former officer myself, I have some experience of the challenges - as well as the rewards - of involvement.
Lastly, I'm honoured that you have entrusted this position to me at such an interesting time. I hope to get to know many more of you over the coming year, and promise that I will do whatever I can to further the aims of our society.
Virginia Wilton
The National Organisation Working Group, convened by Haya Husseini of Victoria, has been hard at work investigating the problems and possibilities of a national body. The Institute recognises that the strength of the profession is in its state and territory societies, and that any national body should contribute to the societies rather than draw energy away from them. Yet it is essential for the societies to form some kind of federation that can undertake such matters as accreditation, advocacy and promotion at the national level.
What should the national organisation's functions be? How should it work with the state societies? What legal structure should it adopt? The working group's Issues Paper sets out some of the options, and the societies will hold workshops to discuss them during August and September. Each society will send its members a copy of the Issues Paper, inform them of the date and venue for its workshop, and give an email address for feedback from those who cannot attend. The Issues Paper will also be posted on the website <case-editors.org>. This is obviously a crucial step for Australian editors, and all members are urged to take part in the discussion. A plenary session at the Melbourne conference will consider the feedback from the workshops and determine how the profession wants to proceed in this matter.
The Institute has received a thoughtful discussion paper dealing with several aspects of accreditation from Professor Pam Peters of Macquarie University. The paper and the Institute's response will be placed on the website. Meanwhile the Accreditation Board is preparing its presentation for a plenary session at the Melbourne conference in October.
As editors face the far-reaching changes resulting from organising at a national level and introducing an accreditation scheme, it is vital to air all the issues with complete openness. The Institute cannot function without the informed consent of members and it makes every effort to consult them at each step. The biennial national conferences are as close as we get to a representative meeting of members. The Melbourne conference is shaping up as an enticing opportunity for individual professional development, and it will also be a forum at which members can influence the national profession and help to shape its future.
Janet Mackenzie, Liaison Officer
In the year since our last Annual General Meeting the society has continued to support its members through training courses and monthly meetings and by representing your views in the forum of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE), which has now become a national body, the Institute of Professional Editors. I'd like to thank Ed Highley who has been our society's representative on CASE and IPE, and has provided great support to their activities, including organising the national website. Janet Salisbury also did sterling service representing us on the national Accreditation Committee. Thank you, Janet. Her role has now been taken over by another of our hardworking members, Louise Forster, on the Accreditation Board formed to implement the decisions on a national accreditation system.
Our next monthly meeting in August will be devoted to discussing the latest developments from IPE and their implications for us. Your input will be vital to ensure that the needs and interests of Canberra editors are fully considered in designing our professional accreditation system.
Thank you to Kerie Newell, who has been involved in CASE work through the year with the publicity committee. Ed has been invited to be the Institute's representative on the IPE national committee, and it's expected that the incoming President will take over his former role as CSE representative on that body.
We have had a number of very successful training sessions: courses on fundamental editing skills run by Helen Topor (thank you Helen) and the recent session on dealing with designers, which also received excellent feedback from participants. Our Training Coordinator, Shirley Dyson, has agreed to continue in the role and will bring you at least one more proofreading course in August and possibly another topic before Christmas.
Next year we plan to revisit the highly acclaimed series of Ed•Ex (well, the second in the series…) and Shirley will organise other courses for you through the year. She has had requests for web editing, but if you have anything else that you would like training on please let her know - also if you would like to provide training.
The attendance at meetings throughout the year has been fairly constant at around 25 to 30. Not a bad effort especially in the winter months but we would like to see many more. We have had many interesting speakers, and members have been able to question these experts and professionals, thus taking advantage of another avenue for learning and information sharing. Ted Briggs, our Vice President, has been responsible for organising and coordinating speakers for our meetings, not to mention the dinners after and the newly instituted door prizes!
Cathy Nicoll coordinated the snacks and drinks, and we have received many compliments on our catering for meetings. A special mention to Ann Parkinson who often came to the party with trays and bowls of goodies. Cathy has worked on the committee for many years as Training Officer, Ed•Ex organiser and latterly as Catering Officer. Her other commitments mean that she has to resign from the committee, but we would like to thank her for all her great contributions.
The newsletter has continued to appear regularly each month, bringing you news and articles. As you will know from the last issue, Ara Nalbandian has stepped down as editor. Peter Judge has taken on this role while continuing as production editor, reverting to the structure we used to have, with a single committee member responsible for producing the newsletter.
Ara has also been working, with Louise Oliver and Ed Highley, on a new printed edition of the Freelance Register. So thank you Ara for all your efforts.
Peter Judge is still our webmaster and also our Public Officer and maintains the membership records. The website is an important resource for the society and others. Prospective employers find the online Freelance Register particularly valuable, and this has been the source of many jobs for our members.
The society has continued to attract new members - an average of four applications a month. A few of our existing members have not yet renewed their subscriptions this year, so if you are one of them let me remind you that you only have until the end of August to do so. Our total numbers are now close to 200.
As I come to the end of my time as President I would like to thank all the members of my committee who have helped so much to keep the society moving forward. In particular Ted Briggs, who has been a wonderful Vice President, taking care of many details to ensure the success of our activities and also filling in when I was overseas, Jenny Cook who also worked steadily in the back room, especially for her contributions to Ed•Ex, and all the others: Louise, Kerie, Tracey… and Megan Cook who has looked after our finances so beautifully for the whole year. She is vacating the post of treasurer and she will be a class act to follow.
Claudia Marchesi
I was recently on Norfolk Island for a relaxing holiday after a somewhat frenetic couple of months. Almost the first words I heard on arrival were Whutta-waye? addressed to someone standing near me at the airport. My linguist's ear picked up the sounds, and as soon as possible, I hurried to a shop to buy a book on the Norfolk [pronounced Norfuk] language. Imagine my delight at discovering the shopkeeper was a Pitcairner [Pitkerner] who spoke the local language. She described it as a pidgin, being a mix of Yorkshire Dales English and Tahitian. I have seen it described also as a creole and just patois. I don't know enough yet to sort that out, but I suspect that 'creole' is the most apt description. The language is certainly a pidgin that has become the native language of the entire Pitcairn community on Norfolk, and is not restricted to the uneducated. It is a living language, with all the nuances of any other language.
The language mix originates from the English of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitian of the women they married in Tahiti. Their descendants went to Pitcairn Island and experienced great privations on that very small rocky blip in the ocean. In 1856 the whole population of Pitcairn Island moved to Norfolk Island with the blessing of the British government who by then had closed down the second of two penal settlements there. The Pitcairners (194 of them) formed the third settlement of the island, and are thriving there today. Today's Norfolk has developed to include modern terms, and many English words, with typical Norfolk pronunciation, are in the mix.
Spelling of Norfolk is wildly variable. The language was never written down, so there is a great deal of individuality in pronunciation and spelling, when attempts are made to write it. A number of locals, including Beryl Nobbs Palmer and Alice Inez Buffett, both true islanders, have written dictionaries and texts on the language. I was also told that Professor Peter Mülhäusler of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Adelaide, and co-author of several Lonely Planets books on the languages of Oceania, is to visit Norfolk Island shortly to start on a full description of the language.
By the time I'd rested for a day or so and soaked up a bit of nice warm sunshine, I was ready to tackle the island and some of its tourist spots. And there it was again - the bus driver on the first tour greeted us all with Whutta-way yorlye?, thankfully followed by the English 'How are you all?' So I worked out that what I'd heard in the airport was 'How are you?' addressed to a single person. At the end of the tour, dotted with bits of Norfolk from the driver, he then asked: Whuthing yorlye gwen doo morla? Well, by now, we were getting used to it, and told him what our plans were for the next day!
There are some odd omissions in Norfolk - there is no word for 'children'. So they have to be described as little people: lekl salan. And there are many words that betray their Tahitian origin, such as hilli, which means lazy or anything to do with lethargy - the sort of laziness that stems from sitting in the hot sun for a while. A conversation can go something like: Come to me yu es sullun se gut a hilli side you bin sit out in ar hot sun! ('Seems to me you are in a relaxed, lazy mood after sitting in the hot sun.') I guddet strawng! ('I have a very bad attack of that lazy feeling!') A local eatery, Hilli, encourages you to 'come and laze' with them. I did, and it was a nice experience.
What about the geese and cows? Well, during one of the penal settlements of Norfolk Island, the governor imported geese to help keep vermin and pests down. They were so successful that they were allowed to stay and have continued to breed. They hang around the old Kingston penal settlement area in a great gaggle, and you have to give way to them. Beautiful area, with wonderfully restored buildings and lighters from the penal days. Same privilege applies to the cows: local farmers are allowed to graze their cows on the nature strips and any open grass, and drivers must give way to them. Our bus driver described them as 'our best council workers' - no need for mowing with the cows around. So I really did need to mind my geese and cows!
This is a bit rambly, but that's what Norfolk Island does to you. It's a beautiful island of steep grassy hills, flat coastal areas, and those distinctive triangular pines. Well, I'd better jug-a-lorng.
© Elizabeth Manning Murphy 2005
Sources: A Dictionary of Norfolk Words and Usages, 3rd edition, by Beryl Nobbs Palmer, published by the Norfolk Island Sunshine Club, 2002; Speak Norfolk Today: an Encyclopaedia of the Norfolk Island Language, by Alice Inez Buffett, published by Himii Publishing Company, Norfolk Island,1999, and a travel brochure.
Cathy Nicoll talks to Louise Forster about a busy family life and her work as a science editor
I've been editing professionally since 1996, when I had my first child. My training is actually in resource management, which is an applied science and environmental management degree. I found that pretty much every job I had after I graduated was in editing or science communication, even in the guise of doing further studies or running research projects. I seemed to end up editing other people's work or writing extension material. So, with the advent of a first child and a move out of science, editing looked like an attractive option. Since I was doing the editing work unpaid anyway I decided I might as well be paid for it.
I work from home. This means that I can take the kids to school, I can pick them up after school and, if I have to meet a deadline, I just have to put in a few extra hours after work - well, after dinner - and, because I work at home, it's not a big issue.
So you've got an open door policy?
No, they've got a 'we open the door' policy.
Do you find that your clients are receptive or understanding of your family and work commitments, or is that not an issue at all?
When the kids were very young it was almost a marketing point.
So you feel that working from home as an editor is a pretty successful way to operate at the moment?
Oh, it works for me. The secret is to set up your own independent social network so that when you want to have human contact you can have it, because you can't rely on colleagues to wander by for a chat.
What are your views about the editing profession, and accreditation?
I think professionalising the industry is absolutely crucial because one of the problems for professional editors is recognition - being recognised as a specialist, as someone who needs a certain background and a certain skill set to be able to edit professionally. I see accreditation as being one step towards gaining that sort of recognition.
As a professional editor marketing my services I'd hope to raise the question in my clients' minds: 'why is this person accredited and this person not?' It starts to explain, say, differences in the value of quotes that we put in and it gives people an idea of the sort of standard that they can expect.
You've made a very considerable contribution to the Canberra Society of Editors over a number of years - what are your views on the society?
Jenny Cook made a comment in her interview that as a professional editor it was absolutely essential to be part of the society, and I agree wholeheartedly with that. I don't think you can call yourself a professional and not be part of the society, engaging in social and networking activities and in training and updating your skills.
If you're not continually training and keeping your skills up to date then you're getting left behind.
So you seem to be saying that editors need to be very adaptable?
Yes, exactly. There's a jargon phrase in the environmental management sector called the 'cycle of continuous improvement'. I think that's something that should be applied to editors.
You've got a science background and you bring special skills and disciplines to your work as an editor; are you able to enumerate those?
Like others with science backgrounds I very firmly believe that to call yourself a science editor you need to have a science background. If you're editing a document with a lot of chemistry in it, for example, you need the background to understand when things are wrong, especially at the copyedit level. You really need to have the content knowledge to understand what the author's trying to say. I'd regard that as crucial.
My love is plain English editing - taking complete science jargon and turning it into something that the normal person can understand. That's what I do best. It requires understanding what the scientists are trying to say, and being able to argue back with them sometimes too.
You've got the authority to do that, obviously.
Well, I don't have a 'Dr' in front of my name and I have children and I'm blonde, so I have no authority.
So how do you persuade them?
Words like, 'Your audience won't understand this' usually work pretty well. The science profession is improving. These days many scientists understand that ordinary people need to be able to read a document too.
What about Cathy Nicoll: what interests do you have and how do you occupy your non-editing time?
I look after small children with my husband. We put a fair bit into the church that we're in and to the community. Yes, that's about it. Between working and children there's not a lot of time left.
What's down the track for you? Will you continue your editing?
Yes, I'll continue editing. We're probably looking at doing some aid work down the track. I've started some training in TESOL, which is teaching English as a second language to speakers of other languages. Yes, it'd be nice to do something with that down the track. But it's a matter of waiting till the kids are big enough.
I have a great life.
It's nice to hear someone say that. You're able to manage it all and have fun at the same time?
Yes, and just get sleep deprived every now and again.
Louise Forster/Cathy Nicoll
Goose, geese, gooses (as a verb!), gander, gosling. The German is Gans (Gänserich, Gänschen). The Latin is anser. How can all these words be related? Any common source almost certainly goes back to that hypothetical language spoken in the Middle East some time before 3000 BC, Proto-Indo-European, from which nearly every other European language is supposed to have evolved. While no contemporary trace of it remains, scholars skilled at thinking backwards have even written dictionaries and grammars of it. And logic suggests that what was the source for the goose should be the source for the gander, and probably the answer to anser as well.
This was certainly believed by language experts until recently. Weekley's 1921 etymological dictionary says firmly, 'Anglosaxon gos ... cognate with anser. The -s was originally a suffix, and from the same root come gander and gannet.' Even the 1997 Macquarie dictionary links gander to the German Gans.
But the latest Oxford English Dictionary throws some doubt on this: 'while goose represents an Old Aryan ghans [and so evolving into hansa, then anser], it is possible that Old English gan(d)ra may be cognate with Lithuanian gandras, stork.' (But notice that 'd' sneaking in to help the pronunciation, just as when the Old English thunor added a 'd' to become thunder.) The OED also mentions a suggestion that gander may have simply been the name of another water bird, and became attached to goose because 'goose and gander' had a pleasant alliterative ring.
So, perhaps the source is not so obvious after all. And if all our geese were swans we wouldn't expect the male and female, cob and pen, to share a source with the word swan, which doesn't even come from the Latin cygnus but (referring to the European musical swan, not the more familiar European mute swan) from various old Aryan words meaning sound or melody. No, cob simply has the sense of big or sturdy and used to be attached to the male swan - a cob swan - as in a cob horse or a cob nut. The origins of pen have the OED baffled. Anyway, in 16th century legislation about Crown ownership and rights to upping (driving up and marking for ownership) they were called sire and dame.
Other common birds have equally disparate names for the sexes or the young, for example cock, hen, chicken, and drake, duck, duckling. Not just birds, either. Game animals tend to be given very precise names, depending on the stage at which they are shot, or hooked or otherwise slaughtered. The male red deer goes year by year through calf, bullock, brocket, staggard, stag and hart. Even then he is characterised by the number of branches on his bony antlers, called 'tines' just like the prongs on your garden fork. A big hart may have 12 tines (a 'Royal') or even 14 (a 'Wilson'). Female deer have no antlers, with the single exception of the reindeer.
Another animal once hunted or 'baited' rather cruelly in England and therefore acquiring specialist terminology was the badger: the male was a 'boar', the female a 'sow' and the young 'pigs', but he answered at different ages to 'brock, 'gray' and 'bauson'.
As for fish, the salmon has a great multiplicity of names, hatching as 'fry', then going to 'kelt', 'parr', 'smolt' or 'smelt' as it goes down to the sea and finally returning to its spawning ground up-river as a 'grilse'.
Returning briefly to our starting point, in the farmyard geese come in flocks (but we prefer gaggles!), and they fly in those V-shaped formations known as wedges, a term that they share with other birds like swans and ducks. Most other meanings of the word 'goose', both as a noun and a verb, follow from the idea that the goose isn't really a very bright bird: 'a silly goose', to 'goose' somebody (poking them to make them jump and make a noise like a goose - and not very polite, either), 'taking a gander' (a rather casual look). The Victorian children's tale of The Little Grey Goose has the goose able to think only one thought at a time, because her head was too small to hold more. If only larger heads could always do better...
Peter Judge
Sources: the OED, Ernest Weekley's An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (Dover 1967, first pub. 1921), and the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite on DVD.
Our fellow member Pamela Hewitt reports that the 2nd issue of her e-magazine The Fine Print is now out, at <www.emendediting.com/ezine>. There is a subscription facility, so that you can ask Pam to let you know when each new issue appears - and from which she assures us you can remove your name at any time.
This project aims to increase the visibility and profile of editors as contributors to our cultural heritage and to promote the editing profession. The Melbourne-based Occasional Series on Australian Editors (OSAE) working group - endorsed by the Society of Editors (Vic) and CASE - has a national vision. We encourage interest and support from other state and territory members and welcome volunteers to assist with our continuing program. The new website of the Society of Editors (Vic) will feature regular updates about our activities.
We are planning two special activities tied to the national editors' conference in Melbourne, 13-15 October:
Sheila Allison began her working life in various facets of newspaper publishing. She has had wide experience in various media and is now proprietor and director of Montpelier Press and editorial production manager for Red Hill Books.
Pamela Ball was a teacher of French and English with the education department in Adelaide when the chance arose to enter the career path that led to manager of the department's publishing unit. Pamela is now a freelance writer and editor, and was the founding president of the South Australian Society of Editors.
Loma Snooks has over 25 years' experience at a senior level in editing, design and publication team management. She is known to us all as leader of the team that prepared the sixth edition of the Commonwealth's Style Manual for authors, editors and printers. She played a key role in establishing editing societies in South Australia and Canberra, and was the Inaugural President of the Canberra Society of Editors, of which she is an honorary life member. She was also a member of the Working Group that produced the National Standards for Editing Practice.
Lee White started editing at Sun Books, where she was trained by Geoffrey Dutton and worked at William Collins (London), Macmillans, the National Gallery of Victoria and Monash University before becoming a full-time freelance editor.
If you want to know more about the OSAE project, please contact its convenor, Diane Brown, at <dianeb@netspace.net.au> or phone (03) 9718 1358.
Training for editors is more than just 'editing' - many editors are involved in the process of publishing from beginning to end. This may require editors to 'buy in' services from designers and printers and prepare design and printing briefs. So last month 13 members took part in a session on 'Working Well with Designers and Printers', conducted by Philippa Hays and Julie Bradley - designers and educators with extensive experience. This was great success and an informative and enjoyable experience.
Helen Topor conducted training sessions last October and again this May, and is giving another in August.
Each of these sessions could have catered for a lot more people, so please spread the word that the society is providing high quality training sessions, open to nonmembers. Information about training is always on our website, showing both the member and nonmember rates. We quite often find that outside participants finish by joining the society.
Shirley Dyson, Training Coordinator
Yes, our AGM was a great evening, although its French theme wasn't as immediately obvious from the costumes of its participants as we had hoped. A casual neckscarf here, a beret there, and that was about it.
But the trivia questions brought it all home to us, ranging from Charlemagne to Baudelaire and off to le Grand Charles (de Gaulle) and Edith Piaf. It was brilliantly conceived and managed by Ara Nalbandian and Ted Briggs, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Well done to Ara and Ted!
The serious part of the AGM, earlier in the evening, was conducted with their customary aplomb by presidents Claudia Marchesi (outgoing) and Virginia Wilton (incoming), with heart-stopping suspense as we hunted for a new treasurer to take on the mantle that had been worn with such style by Megan Cook. But in the end all was well; Sue Wales stepped into the breach, and your committee was finally able to enter a new and exciting year with a full complement.
And then we all crossed to the tables and tucked into the Hellenic Club's delicious offerings, racking our brains between courses with those trivia teasers.
Une soirée vraiment réussie… not only a lot of fun, but a very successful outcome.
Peter Judge
The society welcomes the following new members: Michael Gladwin as a student member; Marija Lemic and Heather Lyell-Martin as associates; Bryan Coleborne, Karen Dahlstrom and Michael Mulrine as full members.
is published by Canberra Society of Editors,
PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603.
© Canberra Society of Editors 2005. ISSN 1039-3358
The next newsletter will appear in September and the copy deadline for this issue is 2 September.
Peter Judge is away in September, so the next newsletter will be produced by Ed Highley.
Ed will welcome your contributions by email to <ed@clarusdesign.com>, in Word for Windows, for PC or Mac.
If by snail mail, then please send it on a floppy disk with accompanying hard copy, to Ed Highley at:
Unit 1 'Arawang', 80-92 Crozier Circuit, Kambah ACT 2902
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