Our next general meeting will be on Wednesday, 25 May, at 6.00 for 6.30 pm, in the Friends Lounge of the National Library.
Australian English has been evolving since the time of the first British settlers, and the changes continue, particularly under the influence of American English. Editors are well placed to monitor these changes. This talk explores the changes and our attitudes to them.
We are glad to welcome once again as our speaker, Dr Pauline Bryant, a Visiting Fellow in the School of Language Studies at ANU, who has a particular interest in Australian English and the role of language in society.
As usual, we will invite our speaker to join us for dinner after the meeting, and we hope that many of our members will come along too.
29 June: Gary Wilson from Paperlinx, on everything you ever wanted to know about paper but were afraid to ask.
27 July: Annual General Meeting.
31 August: The new Institute of Professional Editors - what's in it for you?
- Next meeting
- From the President
- CASE notes
- An evening with John Birmingham
- From the editor's desk
- Track changers - Claudia Marchesi
- Minding my p's and q's …
- Thinking about words
- Occasional series on Australian editors
- Training news
- Catering - a 'thankyou' and a 'please'
- Copyright and deadlines
We had a very good turnout for the April meeting and Cathy Nicol and Anne Parkinson provided a sumptuous snack table for the pre-meeting networking and socialising. About 30 members and interested visitors turned up to hear John Birmingham tell us, with a great deal of wit and humour, about his development as a writer and the important role that editors have played in that process. Eight of us then went to dinner with him at La Dolce Vita in Kingston and continued discussing some of the interesting topics raised during his presentation.
Next month's meeting will feature Dr Pauline Bryant and should be equally informative and thought provoking, so mark it in your diary now. And of course there will be the usual dinner afterwards, venue to be announced.
One of the major topics of interest for the society at the moment is, of course, the work of the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE). CASE has now settled on a name for the proposed national body: the Institute of Professional Editors. Through that organisation we will be able to proceed to national accreditation for editors. Louise Forster has agreed to represent our society in the continuing discussions and negotiations on accreditation. Thank you, Louise. And I must also thank our other Louise, Louise Oliver, who has very valiantly filled in as secretary since the previous secretary resigned due to other commitments.
Our current ACT representative on CASE, Ed Highley, will continue to be involved as the national representative on the accreditation body. There will be a lot of work in getting the new institute up and running so, if you are interested in working on that national level, get in touch with Ed or me for further information.
We are approaching the end of our year, which will culminate in the Annual General Meeting on 27 July. That is when, apart from having a great dinner and reviewing our achievements for the previous 12 months, we also hold elections for committee positions. Details of the meeting and associated dinner will be circulated in the next newsletter, and the website. My term as president will end (and under our constitution I cannot stand again) so that position will be vacant.
If you would like to be president, or to join the committee in any other capacity, or if you know someone who you think would be perfect for one of the jobs, keep an eye on the newsletter and the website for information on how to nominate. There may be vacancies associated with the newsletter and we will also need a subcommittee to plan the 2006 Ed•Ex. And of course the catering for the monthly meetings also requires ongoing volunteer support.
Being on the committee is a great way to meet other editors and it provides opportunities to develop skills and contribute to the success of the Society. Think about it! But don't stay away from the AGM just because you think you may be shanghaied onto the committee! It doesn't work like that - come along to enjoy the fellowship and to support your professional body.
See you at the next meeting!
Claudia Marchesi
We are to be the Institute of Professional Editors. CASE chose this name for the national organisation in process of formation at a teleconference on 17 April, based on responses to the questions put to you in society newsletters in the last few weeks. The delegates feel that this name is sufficiently weighty to reflect the serious concerns of the national body. This name also recognises that there are a lot of amateur editors out there and sets us apart from them.
The other frontrunner was 'Editors Australia', but the geographical restriction was seen as a handicap in a globalising world.
This point was driven home immediately when the CASE Business Manager, Renée Otmar, Vic., reported on her recent New Zealand visit. New Zealand has no editors society as such, but Renée met members of the Local Publishers Forum, the New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors and the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand. They were all impressed with the strides Australian editors are making in becoming more professional and organising at a national level. CASE will invite NZ representatives to attend the first meeting of the Accreditation Board (at NZ's expense), with a view to their eventually joining the accreditation scheme.
Robin Bennett, Qld, charged with setting up the Accreditation Board, has been busy making arrangements for its first-ever meeting at the end of May. The CASE rep is Ed Highley, Canberra, and the state delegates appointed so far are: Louise Forster, Canberra; Shelley Kenigsberg, NSW; Karen Disney, SA; Helen Bethune Moore. Vic.
The Accreditation Board's first tasks will be to set up administrative arrangements and seek funding to get the accreditation scheme up and running. State and territory societies are also requested to nominate 'distinguished editors acceptable to their peers' to form the first panel of assessors.
Convenor: Haya Husseini, Vic.
Copying the successful consultation process pioneered by the Standards and Accreditation Working Groups, this group is preparing an issues paper to circulate to members in July. State and territory societies are encouraged to plan workshops in August to discuss the form that a national organisation might take.
Convenor: Shelley Kenigsberg
This working group is planning a survey of the use and value of Australian Standards for Editing Practice, with a view to proposing revisions if necessary. Shelley reported that there are plenty of copies of the booklet to distribute to students and new members at no charge, and the content may also be downloaded from the CASE website as a PDF.
Convenor: none at present
The group has a couple of keen members who need help to write a brief for a PR company to promote both the new national organisation and the accreditation scheme. Do you have expertise or interest in PR? Would you enjoy helping to shape the national image of the profession? Contact your CASE delegate.
A society member has pointed out that the policy on editing theses that CASE negotiated with the Deans and Directors of Graduate Studies seems to be unknown to some academics. Janet Mackenzie, Vic., will write to DDOGS to ask them to make greater efforts to publicise it.
The teleconference also discussed the CASE presentation at the national conference and various routine arrangements such as email protocols, archives, website maintenance and finances.
Janet Mackenzie, CASE Liaison Officer
In one of the most enjoyable evenings we've had for a long time, John Birmingham, erstwhile 'apostle of grunge journalism', demonstrated very clearly to us why he is such a good story-teller.
Speaking about his start in writing, John said he had always wanted to be a writer, and among the first books to make an impression on him were the books of John O'Grady - yes, that John O'Grady, better known to many as Nino Culotta. A lot of the craft of writing was gained by copying out word for word the books of John O'Grady (a technique he was heartened to find was also practised by the late Hunter Thompson).
It was during a stint working at the Office of Strategic Crime Assessments (OSCA) in Canberra, doing security clearances on people, that he really became interested in stories. As he put it, digging through people's garbage bins turns up some wonderful stories.
John gave us an insight into how he extracts stories from people, even from people who claim not to have one. The secret is not to ask someone to tell their story (and definitely not to ask them to write it down), but to sit down with them in the right environment, such as over a drink, and just let them talk.
He's a big fan of editing, which he sees as a skill completely different from writing but just as important. Although he described his own introduction to being edited as a bit of a shock, he quickly realised that there is no story worth reading that hasn't had the editor's whip lashed over it several times.
One of the good qualities of an editor is 'not to take any guff' from the author. He is finding it intriguing working with both an Australian and a US copyeditor on the sequel to Weapons of Choice - the Australian editor is picking up much more than the US one. He is more than ready to take the advice of his editors and actually accepts 99 per cent of their suggested changes without question.
Interestingly Weapons of Choice started off as an airport novel but it ended up being changed completely ('every single line'), and turned into something much more substantial. For those of us who weren't familiar with the term airport novel, John described it as one of those novels you buy in airport bookshops and which improve with altitude. He did, however, own up to having a sneaking respect for people who write airport novels, which are easy to read but very hard to write.
As an example of the impact of good editing, he described the difficulty he had in inserting a quote from Robert Hughes at the last minute into a story about gay politics in Darlinghurst, which he had written for the Independent Monthly. The article had been edited so tightly that they had enormous difficulty fitting it in. He described the process as one of 'unbolting' the story and taking it apart piece by piece.
On advice for young writers getting started, he says there are hundreds of fringe publications out there looking for copy. He laments that we don't have a tradition in Australia, unlike the US and the UK, where really good writers also write for the press and for magazines. Not only does this make aspiring writers unwilling to write for these media, but it doesn't help these magazines improve.
I have probably missed writing down a lot of valuable points from John's talk because I was so entertained by what he was saying. However, one clear message relevant to us as editors is that we can take heart: there is at least one good writer out there who appreciates what we do. So from now on, don't take any guff from your authors.
Edwin Briggs
Editor's note: If you are curious and you missed his talk, you can find a bit more about John Birmingham at <www.duffyandsnellgrove.com.au/sound/JB_writer.ram>, including a few seconds of movie with JB wearing a Superman shirt and explaining 'How I became a writer'.
Several reminders later, some people have still not updated their profiles for the printed edition of the Freelance Register, the eighth edition of which was supposed to come out a month ago. Full members of the society have another chance to update their profiles or to submit profiles if they haven't had one in previous editions of the register. You'll all receive a further reminder by email, but if you don't respond by 29 May, your old entry will reappear in the register - so be warned: this is your last chance to have an up-to-date profile in the printed version of the Freelance register!
Send your update (or your new entry, if you are a full member who freelances and have not yet made use of this opportunity to advertise your services free of charge) to Peter Judge at <peter.judge@alianet.alia.org.au> for inclusion in the web register, and to me at <ara.nalbandian@defence.gov.au> for the print version. The registers, both print and web, really are effective. Potential clients scan them, and our members really do get work through them! You can find the web register at <www.editorscanberra.org/freelance.htm>,
Ara Nalbandian
This month our president, Claudia Marchesi. spoke to Louise Forster about her childhood, her various careers, her interests and the editing society.
I was born in Trieste in Italy and actually started primary school there before my family emigrated to Australia. I was almost seven when we came out on the Toscana. When I came out I couldn't speak a word of English, and now I correct other people's English. So there you go.
Being migrants, we moved a lot. After we'd been in Adelaide for about six months we moved, not very far away, but I had to change schools. At the beginning of the following year I went back to Unley Primary, which was my first school. The teachers greeted me with open arms and said, 'Hello, Claudia, how are you?' and I stood up and said, 'You don't have to speak slowly. I can understand what you're saying'. In six months, I'd become fairly fluent in English.
I went to seven different primary schools. But then towards the end of that period we built our own home, which meant that I only ever went to one high school - a good thing, I suppose. Then I went on to Adelaide University.
When I was finishing my Arts degree (with a major in English) I joined the Public Service. I started off at the Department of Customs and Excise in Port Adelaide. I worked for a while in the big Customs Hall, including doing some interpreting and translating for the prevention and detection teams. Then I became executive assistant to the Collector of Customs, writing background briefing papers and esoteric reports. After doing that for some time, I came to Canberra.
Basically, I spent seventeen years in the Public Service in welfare departments - immigration, education, health, social security, community services. In that time I picked up another degree in social sciences, in psychology and sociology, because for a while there I was doing a lot of research and interviews and surveys.
But I was never happy in the service. So I started a part-time teacher-training course out at what was then the Canberra College of Advanced Education, thinking I would go and do some teaching in the evenings just for a change of environment. It turned out to be such good fun that after the first part-time semester I took long service leave so that I could devote myself to doing the course faster. I managed to inveigle myself into a part-time position at the Woden TAFE, towards the end of which two permanent positions came up. I applied and got one. On the first day that I had my own class, I was driving to the TAFE and I caught myself singing along to the radio - a clear sign of job satisfaction!
I loved teaching, but after ten years I decided to leave. Within a couple of weeks, my colleagues in the communication area of the CIT rang me and said, 'We've been asked to do this editing job but we really don't have time. Would you mind doing it for us?'. That was how I started to become an editor.
So I'd gone from being a fairly miserable public servant to a really excited teacher to a very excited editor. Working with words is just something that makes me happy.
What about your other interests?
For a number of years I was involved with Canberra Repertory, and after that for another ten years or so with the ANU Choral Society. I also like to read, draw and, of course, travel.
You recently had a trip to Italy, Slovenia and Croatia?
I was away for three-and-a-half months. Because my parents kept in close contact with people back in Italy, I now find a very deep welcome when I return. So while three-and-a-half months in Italy, Slovenia and Croatia may sound very exotic, a lot of it's going to people's places for lunch or for dinner and just catching up.
Finally, you've been president of the society for nearly two years now …
Yes, it's been good. I was on the committee for a number of years, so it was a fairly painless transition from committee member to chief committee member - with, of course, more responsibilities and a few challenges. I think the committee is a very important element of the society and I'd encourage anybody who's a member to come and join us. We're always on the lookout for more help and new ideas, especially now that we're dealing with accreditation.
I think we still have a role to play in making the community at large aware of the importance of editing. What I think we haven't really focused on as much in the past year or so is our links with the other professional organisations. Certainly, we've always had that strong association with designers and indexers. But there's a whole network of activities and professions that impact on communication - on good communication, on effective and correct communication - that we can continue to foster.
But if there's one message I'd leave people with, it's to say: come along to our meetings and be involved in the work of the society.
Louise Forster/Claudia Marchesi
Mother's Day will have been and gone by the time you read this. But as I write I see advertisements all around me for Mother's Day entertainments, newspaper notices, meals, weekends away, and flowers.
A gift of flowers is a traditional gesture of thanks to a mum, but we need to be careful which flowers to give her because flowers have a 'language' of their own.
If you want to declare undying, hopeless love and be perfectly honest about it, then tulips will get the message across - no mincing tiptoeing, but full-on declaration. I don't know that this would be the sort of message appropriate for mum.
Speaking of 'mum', chrysanthemums are often referred to as 'mums, and right now the shops are stacked with them - white, red, yellow - all potted up nicely and ready for giving. The shops have given us the idea that these colourful flowers are the ideal Mother's Day gift. Be careful. According to one source, red means 'I love', white stands for 'truth' and yellow (my favourite - it would be, wouldn't it?) represents 'slighted love'.
What about roses? Yes, well, they represent love, certainly. However, love comes in different shades, just as roses do, and you'd need to think about which one would be appropriate for mum or for a lover or for a friend's birthday. While the rose in general seems to represent true love, there are variations: red means 'passionate love', white means 'innocence, purity', red and white together mean 'unity', pink means 'perfect happiness' and yellow means 'jealousy'. Drat! My absolute favourite flowers are yellow roses.
Daffodils seem to mean 'unrequited love'. I think I'll have to change my favourite colour for flowers.
The Australian flannel flower has always been associated in my mind with mothers, but the sources seem to regard it as most suitable for bridal bouquets. I couldn't find any agreement on the meaning of the flower, but it is regarded as the flower for birthdays in November, and seems generally to represent innocence.
Another favourite flower is the daisy. You'd be safe there - it means 'simplicity'.
So what sort of floral tribute would I give to a mother on Mother's Day? Probably a mixture of red and white roses (for love and unity) with a sprinkling of simple daisies.
If you want to check these out, do what I did and Google 'language of flowers' and see what comes up.
© Elizabeth Manning Murphy
For the love of money is the root of all evil. (1 Tim. 6,10)
Ever wonder about money? No, not the stuff that makes the clinking clanking sound, but the word money and the amazing number of synonyms and euphemisms we have invented to refer to it: cash, dough, bread, lolly, blunt, oof, tin, brass, razoo, moolah, spondulicks and so on. We call it all kinds of names according to whether we have lots or little at the time, or love it, or hate it, or are just moving it about - usually from our account into somebody else's.
This came to mind when I was doing a crossword a few days ago. The clue for 2 down was 'pelf (5)', so of course I confidently wrote M-O-N-E-Y. But then nothing else worked out, so I had to think again, and this time hit upon LUCRE. That was all right - 1 across, 'secret (8)', gave me ULTERIOR, and the rest fell into place.
Why, I thought, is lucre usually filthy, and why is pelf a bit dodgy, too? Come to that, starting at the beginning, where does that word money come from? So, off to the dictionary, and there I was surprised to find that it's from the name or attribute of a Roman goddess, Juno Moneta. Those people who worship money quite clearly have very good precedents to draw on!
Juno, wife of Jupiter, was originally taken over by the Romans from the Greek goddess of memory, Mnemosyne, the source of mnemonic and mother of the nine muses. A logical connection - before reading and writing were widely accessible, memory was a poet's or singer's greatest asset. Juno became very much the women's goddess, especially where marriage, the home and children were concerned. As Juno Lucina, goddess of childbirth, she had a temple in Rome from the 4th century BC. As Juno Moneta, 'the warner' (from the Latin word monere, to advise, warn or admonish), she had another temple on the Capitoline Hill, which a little later also housed the Roman senators' mint, hence the Latin word for a mint, moneta.
So from Juno Moneta we have money, mint, and all their derivatives (except the mint you have with your roast lamb - that's from mentha). Moneta is still the Italian for coin. The Latin for money is pecunia (hence pecuniary) but the Italian is denaro from the Latin denarius, a small silver coin which gave the 'd' that was the old abbreviation for the British penny. (Remember £sd - libra, solidus, denarius - pound, shilling, penny. In its earliest days the pound sterling was just that - a pound weight of sterling silver.) German Geld for money has obvious links to gold, but the French more modestly refer to money as argent, silver.
Of course money, in various forms from gold bars to cowrie shells or cattle, had been in use around the world long before Roman times. From around 650 BC, the Greeks had coins made of a naturally occurring mixture of gold with about 20 per cent silver, known as electrum. A century later, King Croesus of Lydia (the fellow you would like to be as rich as) introduced pure gold and pure silver coins.
And why coin? That's a French word, meaning corner or wedge; it also means the die used for striking coins or medals, perhaps because the die comes down on the blank at a wedge-like angle when it strikes. Incidentally, we still talk of a coin for the corner stone of a building, although now we usually spell it coigne or quoin, and also for the wedge of wood or metal used in printing to secure type in the chase.
The word money came rather late into the English language - the OED dates it in written texts from 1330. Before that, people would talk of gold - a good old Indo-European derivative with some ghel- in its ancestry that also gave us yellow. Pelf, the crossword clue that initially led me astray, generally refers to money obtained dishonestly - the word is related to pilfer. Lucre is borrowed from the French, where it means 'gain or profit pursued avidly'; it also has an unfavourable implication nowadays, says the OED, although you doubtless consider your lucrative employment to be honest toil.
Cash in the 16th century was the chest that money was kept in (from the Italian cassa, modern French caisse), although the term very soon came to mean money, as today. In grammatical jargon, this was historically an example of metonymy, 'the container for the thing contained' (as in 'the kettle is boiling').
Dough has been money in the USA and most other English-speaking places since the 1850s. Bread is a more recent adoption, although Swift in the 18th century has Crusoe saying, 'I was under no necessity of seeking my bread', in other words, his living. And thinking of food, what about lolly? That strange synonym for money first saw daylight in World War II, although lollipops have existed since the 18th century.
Does anybody outside of a P G Wodehouse novel still call money oof? If so, that has an odd pedigree - its older form, ooftish, comes from the Yiddish oof-tish (German auf den Tisch) meaning 'on the table', where you put your money up front.
As you might expect, the metals of which coins are made have long meant money - we talk about 'a few coppers' or a 'handful of silver'. But 'silver' coins have been made of the hard and durable alloy cupronickel in Britain since 1947. Americans have had their nickels much longer, ever since 1-cent coins were adopted as US currency in 1857, followed by 3-cent and 5-cent coins, and then by 10-cent and 25-cent coins (dimes and quarters) that were sandwiches of cupronickel with a copper core.
Brass has meant 'coins' since the 14th century and 'money' more generally since the early 17th. Tin came in to describe the small silver coins of the late 18th century, which were made of such soft metal that they soon wore quite smooth and looked just like little tin circles. Shrapnel for small change became current in World War I, when diggers in France used it to refer to 'tattered French banknotes of small denominations', although it would seem more appropriate to use it, as we do now, for a few metal coins.
What about the dollar? That word has come down to us from the German Thaler, itself a short form of Joachimsthaler, so-called because the coin was first minted in 1519 in the Saint Joachimsthal in Bohemia (Thal, now spelt Tal, just means 'valley'), where the Count of Schlick had 'appropriated' a rich silver mine. It remained German currency until 1873, when it was replaced by the Mark at the rate of 3 Marks to the Thaler. (The mark was once a unit of weight, especially of precious metals, and the Mark - like the pound sterling - was supposedly worth that weight of silver.) Meanwhile the Americans had officially adopted the dollar as their legal currency in 1785 and had been issuing dollar paper money since 1861. But why is a dollar a buck? The 'buck' was a token used in poker games, passing the buck from one player to another, but why it has been applied to the dollar since the 1850s remains obscure.
And what about all those other strange synonyms? Blunt has meant ready money for the last 200 years, but nobody seems to know quite how it originated. Nor do they know where moolah, spondulicks and a number of similar more recent fanciful inventions came from. Whatever you call it, it remains the necessary (or the needful) and has been so called since the 17th century. May you never run short!
Peter Judge
Sources: Oxford English Dictionary on CD-ROM; Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite on DVD. The image of the artist's reconstruction of the Temple of Juno Moneta comes from Rome of the Caesars, Bonecchi, Rome 1974.
The February meeting of CASE enthusiastically endorsed the proposal by the Society of Editors (Vic.) working group - Diane Brown, Kerry Biram, Janet Mackenzie, Renée Otmar and Anitra Nelson - to embark on a publishing project profiling some of our best and most interesting editors.
The aim of researching and publishing these profiles is to increase the visibility of editors and promote the editing profession. The concept for this project was inspired by Anthony Barker's One of the First and One of the Finest: Beatrice Davis, Book Editor, commissioned by Lisa Berryman and published by the Society of Editors (Vic.) in 1991.
The working group has a national vision and calls for expressions of interest and offers of support for the project from other state and territory members. The group is particularly interested in hearing from others who would like to contribute to the Series as researchers, writers, editors or publishers.
We have met twice already to scope the project, to develop an efficient structure for the group and to plan future activities. We are calling for suggestions for editors to profile and other background details from close contacts who are willing to be interviewed about their work practices, to offer samples of their work and other biographical data.
Complementing its print publishing program, the working group is currently setting up a database on editors, their work and influence. The Victorian working group will promote the project and its aims and will also report to the 2005 national editors' conference in Melbourne. It is also organising a panel session at the conference focusing on life members.
Kerry Biram will post news about the Occasional Series and future activities of the working group on the Society of Editors (Vic.) website soon. Visit the website for regular updates and progress:
If you have any queries about the Occasional Series, please contact Diane Brown, Convenor of the Victorian working group:
Canberra Society of Editors conducts training sessions throughout the year to provide ongoing training for editors who wish to maintain and/or advance their editing and publishing skills. These training sessions are also ideal for those wishing to enter the editorial field.
To launch the training program for 2005, two half-day training sessions have been planned. The first was held ealier in the month, but the second will come in a few weeks' time:
• Working with Designers and Printers: this course has had to be postponed. It will now be held on Saturday, 16 July, from 9.00 am to 1.30 pm. Philippa Hays and Julie Bradley will provide some essential information to assist you in this aspect of your role. Registration now closes on Friday, 8 July.
All the information you need about content, cost and registration can be found on the web Notice Board at <www.editorscanberra.org>.
Further training sessions will be held during the year, so please keep an eye open for training news on our web Notice Board and in The Canberra Editor.
I welcome any feedback on the training sessions we have held and your ideas for future training. Find me at <shirley@ozonline.com.au>.
Shirley Dyson, Training coordinator
I'd like to say a big 'thank you' to all who have helped out with catering so far - Lucy, Karen, Janette, Gabby, Ros, Elizabeth, Megan and Ann.
There are only two more meetings this financial year, so we need two more volunteers (or more if you want to share the task). That's one for May and one for June.
It isn't difficult: you need only prepare some finger food, and bring it along to share. The praise at the end of the night makes it all worth it.
Please contact me at <cathy.nicoll@atrax.net.au> if you can help out.
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 June 2005 and the copy deadline for the next issue is 1 June.
The editor welcomes contributions using Word for Windows, by email to ara.nalbandian@defence.gov.au
If by snail mail, then send them on a floppy disk or CD-ROM to Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603. If mailing, always provide a printout as well.
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