Our next general meeting will be on Wednesday, 30 March, at 6.00 for 6.30 pm, in the Friends Lounge of the National Library.
These days you never know when material you write or edit will be translated, either automatically or by a human translator. Our speaker, Dr Matt Gredley, will talk about some approaches you can take to ensure that this process is as easy and accurate as possible.
Matt is a member of the Australian Institute of Translators and Interpreters, and is one of the most experienced translators in its ACT Branch, specialising in translating technical and scientific material from English into Chinese - an area and language direction that few native English speakers have ventured into.
Future speakers will include:
27 April: John Birmingham, author, on his experiences in writing Weapons of Choice and its sequel.
25 May: Dr Pauline Bryant makes a welcome return, to talk on language change in Australia.
29 June: Gary Wilson from Paperlinx, on everything you ever wanted to know about paper.
- From the Editor's desk
- 'Editing in Context' - conference update
- CASE notes (and new name needed...)
- NLA tour
- Minding my p's and q's … dotting my i's, crossing my t's and other do's and don'ts
- Track changers - Louise Forster muses with Ted Briggs
- Book review: The Australian Editing Handbook
- Thinking about words: Horsing around with nightmares
- Training
- New members
- Copyright and deadlines
In this month's newsletter we have the first in a new series of interviews that a former president of the Canberra Society of Editors, Louise Forster of WordsWorth Writing, has kindly offered to conduct and transcribe. Louise has given the series the imaginative title of Track Changers - the monthly 'musings with a member' column. This series aims to introduce members of the society, and I'm sure you'll agree that this month's interview with Ted Briggs offers a good insight into the life of our current Vice President. We look forward to more interesting tales from members.
As I have asked before, if you have any suggestions, or or ideas, or indeed any contributions in the form of articles or amusing items, please contact me on 0417 263 727 or send them to me at my email address.
Ara Nalbandian
The Editing in Context conference organising sub-committee is proud to welcome John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd as the major conference sponsor. Wiley's continued support of Australian editors in sponsoring the CASE conference for a second time is very much appreciated.
We are also very pleased to announce the three keynote speakers for the conference. They are:
Conference participants will have the opportunity to hear the keynote speakers discuss the current state of the publishing industry in Australia as part of a lively panel session. They will also present their own particular perspectives on our conference themes of Transition, Consolidation and Collaboration.
Other events planned for the Editing in Context conference include a conference dinner, trade fair and field trips. For science editors, the international BELs exam has been planned for Melbourne to coincide with the conference.
Visit our conference website at <www.socedvic.org/editingincontext/> for up-to-date information and the latest news on these and other conference developments. If you have any suggestions or questions, please don't hesitate to contact the Conference Convenor, Lan Wang, at <editingincontext@optushome.com.au>.
Conference Organising Sub-committee
As any vaguely business-minded person would know, the only way ahead is to keep moving. Stand still and before you know it you're so far behind, your image is the size of a full stop on a blank page that's quickly turning.
Australian editors have come a long way since creating the Council of Australian Societies of Editors. CASE was conceived informally in 1998, bringing together eight state and territory society delegates to plan and implement activities that would benefit Australian editors at a national level. CASE's document Australian Standards for Editing Practice was published in 2001.
CASE's more recent venture, and one that followed on naturally after the Standards document, has been the creation of an accreditation process for editors. Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of CASE's accreditation proposal last December. Accreditation fosters recognition of, and confidence in, the profession, and confers credit on editors. However, accreditation would be impossible to implement if CASE remains an informal body. Without a formal status, CASE has no control over its finances - it cannot open a bank account - and has no means of protecting its members from liability.
The next natural step for editors is to create a national organisation. What this means is that CASE would be disbanded and an incorporated association would be registered in the name chosen by its members (see below). The national organisation will play a supporting role towards the state and territory societies. It will primarily concern itself with promotional and professional issues and outcomes for its members in Australia - and at some stage even beyond. The exact structural model, its composition and functions have yet to be detailed. An Issues Report on the formation of a national organisation is due in July this year.
Editors need a voice that represents their interests nationally and internationally. A national organisation of editors will seek to advance the editing profession and find ways to ensure a highly regarded and sustained presence in related business and professional spheres.
The National Organisation Working Group is looking for volunteers to help it with its historic transition. Particularly welcome would be the input of any member who has experience in, and/or knowledge of, governance models for non-profit organisations.
Haya Husseini
Convenor, National Organisation Working Group, CASE
... for the new national body - you choose the name. The aim of our new national body is to advance the editing profession of Australia. In the long run it may look for membership from neighbouring countries such as New Zealand and Singapore. It needs a professional name that reflects our image.
We hope to launch the new name at the national conference in Melbourne in October. Here are some suggestions, in alphabetical order:
- Editors Australia
- Editors' Guild
- Institute of Professional Editors
- Professional Editors' Association
- Society of Editors
- The Company of Editors
- ?? ... (your suggestion).
Please send your choice (one name only please) by Friday 15 April to: <susan@seaviewpress.com.au>
up to Contents
The Behind-the-Scenes tour of the National Library of Australia (NLA) in February was well attended by old and new members alike, and even a few prospective members. After enjoying our usual pre-meeting fellowship and networking, superbly catered by Ros Byrne and Elizabeth Murphy, we set off on a highly interesting and entertaining tour of the library.
One of the NLA's Education Officers, Tim Jones, briefly outlined the history of the library. It started life on Kings Avenue in Barton but rapidly grew to be scattered in several buildings around Canberra. The current building was completed in 1968 to centralise the growing collection. Tim took us first to the Main Reading Room, explaining that the reference material in this area was only a tiny part of the library's reference collection.
One copy of every publication produced nationally in Australia has to be deposited in the NLA - even material of a risqué nature (or 'unsuitable material' as Tim referred to it), such as Australian Playboy and Australian Penthouse. These items are collected for the sake of completeness and because the NLA does not wish to censor the collection in any way; the collection is a reflection of Australian society and culture, and it is impossible to say what will be a relevant research topic in the years to come.
The NLA also collects material about Australia published in other countries. One way and another, its collection is growing at a rate of knots - already over 200 shelf km - so much so that they have already run out of storage space on site. There is a purpose-built storage building in Hume, and another one is planned. The NLA lends its collection only to other libraries, and so suffers very little from losses.
Next, we descended into the basement, where Tim introduced us to one of the NLA's robots. These are of great interest to children on school visits, but for us big kids in the society it was just a mechanised trolley used for transporting books around the library. These 'robots' work by following a line of thin metal plates in the floor, although, because it was past their bedtime, we didn't see them in action.
Endless rows of compactus shelves covered the basement. Tim showed us how they're operated electronically, making it easy for the staff to retrieve books. In order to preserve the collection as much as possible while providing a bearable environment for the people working in the basement, the temperature there is kept at a constant 18 degrees Centigrade and a humidity level of 45 per cent. The NLA has a sophisticated air conditioning system so that the collection remains as dust-free as possible, helping in the preservation of paper.
Our next stop offered a quick peep into the Maps Collection Reading Room (unfortunately closed after hours) where Tim pointed out the two enormous globes on the other side of the glass walls. These globes are replicas of 17th-century originals by Vincenzo Coronelli. The detail the globes displayed was staggering, considering their age, although Australia looked just a tad incomplete! The terrestrial globe was partnered by a celestial globe showing the constellations and associated astrological illustrations.
From there we entered another public-access area, the Newspaper and Microform Reading Room. Tim brought out a handsomely bound volume of newspapers, and explained that, in this age of economic rationalism and cost-cutting, such volumes have had their day. Bundles of newspaper are now shrink-wrapped in plastic, cheaper and much better protection. Most people searching newspapers now do so using microfilms, which are contained in an unimpressive set of drawers - very economical both in cost and the space needed.
Tim talked at length about the NLA's vast collection, which includes local bequests and donations by other countries. And not only books - in one bequest, they found a set of false teeth belonging to 'Billy' Hughes, the eleventh Prime Minister of Australia. As with other unusual items - including the ashes of Thomas Ley - they are now carefully catalogued into the NLA's collection, safe for future generations.
Back to books, Tim showed us the correct way to take a book off the shelf. Instead of pulling the book out from the top of the spine, you should slightly push in the books on either side of the desired book and pull it out by grabbing hold of it at the sides, or reach to the back and push the book out.
The tour ended in the foyer, where Tim pointed out the magnificent stained-glass windows designed by Leonard French and the three tapestries hanging above the entrance to the library. These were made by the French artist, Mathieu Mategot, who visited Australia especially to gather inspiration for these tapestries and was greatly taken by the beauty of this country - both natural and man-made. The tapestries feature Australian flora and fauna, as well as such landmarks as the Sydney Opera House.
All in all, it was a very informative tour, which held us spellbound for almost an hour. Thank you, Tim, for making it such an enjoyable experience. Afterwards, a small number of us went on to dinner at the Sage, where we were able to continue our discussion while enjoying a delicious meal.
Ara Nalbandian
Last month I said I would write about minding my p's and q's. I started by saying that I was brought up to say 'please' and 'thank you'.1 I was interested to read on the 'alt-usage-english'2 website that the most plausible explanation for the origin of this expression is 'the one given in the latest edition of Collins English Dictionary: an alteration of 'Mind your "please"s and "thank you"s'. Hey, doesn't that look weird? How much better it looks as "Mind your 'please's and 'thank you's". How much better still, in my opinion, is: 'Mind your pleases and thank yous' . . . we could argue about that.
While I'm here, the 'alt-usage-english' site gives some theories about the origin of that expression, including 'an admonishment to children learning to write; [and] an admonishment to typesetters (who had to look at the letters reversed)'.3
There are plenty of expressions that involve the use of the apostrophe to show plural. Let's look at a few of them.
Dot your i's and cross your t's
Using the apostrophe makes the sentence clear. Leaving them out makes it difficult to read: 'Dot your is and cross your ts'. The Style manual weighs in on this one, suggesting that italics could be used for the i and the t: 'Dot your is and cross your ts', but admits that the apostrophe version is still clearer.4
If if's and an's were pots and pans …
I suppose italic or nothing at all could be used here: 'ifs and ans', 'ifs and ans'.5 They are marginally clearer than single-letter words pluralised like this, but I still prefer the apostrophe version.
Tim had enough of her 'maybe's'
This sentence was tossed around some time ago on the Wordwizard Clubhouse web forum.6 A contributor wrote, quoting the Chicago Manual of Style (14th edn):7
In the category of "Words Used as Words," it suggests that you omit apostrophes if you italicise the words but use an apostrophe if you put the word in quotes. For example, "Tim had enough of her 'maybe's.'"That seems a little confusing, so I'm going to omit the quotation marks I added to indicate what came directly out of CMS: Tim had enough of her "maybe's."8
Maybe, maybe not. I think if I were to write such a sentence, I'd just write: Tim had enough of her maybe's - no quotation marks around the word.
Lynne Truss, in Eats, Shoots & Leaves, cites various uses for what she calls the 'tractable apostrophe', including:
It indicates the plurals of letters: How many f's in Fulham? (Larky answer, beloved of football fans: there's only one f in Fulham) …It also indicates plurals of words: What are the do's and don't's?9
Do's and don't's?
I have to take issue with Ms Truss on this. I would write the sentence as:
What are the do's and don'ts? An extra apostrophe, as in don't's is unnecessary.
There has been considerable argument recently on a wordplay list I belong to (WordWhirl), including the following:10
Referring to Webster's Guide to Business Correspondence (1988) that deals with the issue of Words Used as Words:Words used as words without regard to meaning usually form their plurals by adding an apostrophe and a roman -s … five and's in one sentence / all those wherefore's and howsoever's. … When [such a] word has become part of a fixed phrase, the plural is usually formed by adding a roman -s without the apostrophe - oohs and aahs / dos and don'ts
I agree with the contributor and Webster except for 'dos'. It is too easily confused these days with DOS - a computer operating system, pronounced [doss].
Mind you, that reference comes from a 1988 publication, and usage changes, even in fifteen years, so we could perhaps argue the toss about that too. Which reminds me:
In the eighties, the 80's, the 80s or the '80s?
The Style manual doesn't care for any of them. It prefers in the 1980s, in full, no apostrophe.11 I do too, but I tolerate in the eighties or in the '80s, provided they are not used in formal writing.
I don't think I've answered too many questions here, but I hope I've provided some food for thought.
Elizabeth Murphy
1 The Canberra Editor, vol. 14, no. 1, February 2005, p. 3.2 Website of AUE, <http://alt-usage-english.org>, viewed 23 February 2005.
3 Ibid.
4 Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, rev. Snooks & Co, , John Wiley & Sons, Sydney, 2002, p 88.
5 The rest of it is: '… there'd be no trade for tinkers'.
6 Website of Wordwizard Clubhouse - Apostrophe do's and 'don'ts'. <http://www.wordwizard.com/ch_forum> and go to Archives, viewed 23 February 2005.
7 … which I don't have access to - I'm quoting from the Wordwizard site here.
8 Wordwizard Clubhouse (as above).
9 Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Profile Books, London, 2003, p. 45.
10 Wordwhirl of 16 February 2005, <wordwhirl@smartgroups.com>, viewed 16 and 24 February 2005 (individual contributor not named as contributors often go by nicknames).
11 Style manual for authors, editors and printers, p. 170.
Ted Briggs spoke to Louise Forster about his career, editing, interests and the family menagerie
My background is in information technology, for which I trained many, many years ago. In fact I spent 30 years in the public service - all of it in the Technology Services Division in the Australian Bureau of Statistics. But it's a long time since I've regarded myself as a technology expert. While running the help desk I saw the impact of poorly designed technology on people and things, and I became interested in the useability of software and how to communicate about technology. I led a useability team for two or three years, helping developers design software.
In my last few years at the ABS I worked full time on technical communication: technical writing and editing other people's material. That's how I came to editing. I found I had a knack for it and enjoyed doing it - the challenge of taking a lot of information and melding it, moulding it, cutting it and reworking it to make it something that ordinary people, non-experts, could actually make something of.
Basically, I learnt on the job, by reading, talking, trial and error, trying to work out what worked. I did the Technical and Scientific Editing unit in the CIT, part of the graduate diploma in technical and scientific communication, and so met Elizabeth Murphy, who suggested I come along and join the society, which I did in 2001.
When I left the public service in July 2003 I gave myself twelve months off, because I'd never taken time off work in all the thirty years I'd been there. I intended to keep doing a bit of part-time work or contract work, but I thought it would be nice to have a break first.
I didn't 'do the garage'! All the projects around the house are still waiting to be done. But I did ride a bike through Spain. That was, I suppose, the excitement of that year. I was in Spain for only six weeks but it took a while to prepare for the trip in terms of organising it, getting myself fit enough and trying to get my Spanish up to speed. My next trip probably won't be a cycling trip - perhaps Chile, Patagonia and Argentina, just walking or travelling by train or bus. Then perhaps a bike through France.
At the moment I'm working as a project coordinator on a three-month contract with the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The department is introducing a content management system for their intranet and internet sites. Content management is something I'm interested in and it's also something very valuable for editors and technical writers to know about, so I think the experience is worthwhile.
At this stage of my life I'd like to balance work and other interests so I'm keen on being able to work very flexibly and editing lends itself to that. I'd like to keep helping ordinary people make sense of complex information - rendering it in a way that helps people do something with it.
You're vice president of the Editors' Society so I'm sure you've some views on where the society's going or where the editing profession might be heading?
Well, I don't think the editing profession is going to die out. However, the challenge for us is dealing with people's reluctance to use editors because of what they see as the cost or time delays involved. Whether people are called editors or writers or content managers, there's still a role for people who have the skills to make information accessible, easy to navigate, easy to find and easy to absorb.
As far as the editing societies go, I would like us to do a lot more training. I know when people ring me up to enquire about membership they ask, 'What training do you offer?' As a society we should help our members develop skills and make contacts. I think it's through those training courses that we develop a lot of our contacts.
One of my jobs is to come up with the meeting program for the year. John Birmingham will be talking to us in April. John is a writer resident in Canberra at the moment. He wrote He Died with a Falafel In His Hand and Weapons of Choice. In May, Pauline Bryant will be talking to us about how language changes, particularly in an Australian context. I'm a member of the Australian Society for Technical Communication and I'd certainly like to organise a joint activity with the ASTC during the year.
I believe that you're involved in a number of other organisations?
I'm involved with Elizabeth Murphy in RAPlink, Regional Action Partnership Link, which puts rural and other communities in touch with organisations and individuals who can provide assistance to them. I'm also a telephone volunteer for the Family Drug Support, which operates out of Sydney. I do a shift on that every three or four weeks. People ring up if they have a family member who's going through some difficult times. We can be a point of contact for those people and help them find their way through the mire that they're going through. The skills that you use in that role are very useful in editing and communication, because you have to listen. I'm also still a little bit involved in Toastmasters.
Finally …
The Briggs family has got quite a menagerie: three horses, three dogs, one cat, two rabbits, three birds and a number of fish. It's very difficult for us to take a holiday and it's been quite a while since my wife and I have managed to be away for more than about a night together. But it's definitely part of the Briggs family life to be surrounded by animals!
Ted Briggs/Louise Forster
Much of what I've learned as an editor and trainer of editors I owe to Elizabeth Flann and Beryl Hill. My well-thumbed copy of The Australian Editing Handbook is evidence of how much I've relied on it over the past decade to illuminate for me the intricacies of the publishing industry, and the basics of editing and proofreading. It has also provided authoritative answers to the numerous questions that beset me as a budding editor.
At the Brisbane Editors Conference in July 2003 I was excited when Beryl Hill asked me what I thought should go into a new edition. The long-awaited, fully revised and updated second edition of The Australian Editing Handbook was released on 15 October 2004. It has exceeded my expectations.
Since the first edition appeared in 1994, huge changes have occurred in the publishing industry and the training of editors. Flann and Hill respond well to the new technologies used in publishing and editing, and to changes in the profession.
The first thing I noticed about the revised Handbook is its similarity in format and design to the sixth edition of the Style Manual. As both books are published by John Wiley & Sons, this is probably no coincidence. The compact size is easy to handle and store, and the use of graduated reds and blacks make for an aesthetically pleasing look. Pale red boxes are used for notes, tips, checklists, worked examples and questions to ask; and the hierarchy of headings is much clearer. Given the abundance of publishing, editing and technical terms, fledgling and experienced editors alike will be pleased to see key terms defined in red and conveniently placed in the margin close to where they appear in the text. Also in the margins are references to fuller treatments of matters such as setting up styles in an electronic document template and editing on screen.
Those familiar with the first edition will recognise much of the content found in Part 1, 'Introduction to publishing', and Part 2, 'The basics of editing'. Chapter 1 outlines the complex interrelationships in a publishing company. However, the role of the editor is expanded to reflect changes that have occurred in technology and in the publishing process; and the freelance editor and/or proofreader and the desktop operator are now included in the process. The role of the managing editor and production management skills receive fuller treatment; and workplace health and safety issues make a welcome appearance.
Part 2 is well worth revisiting by experienced editors. It outlines the editor's role and the skills required in marking up copy, copyediting conventions and symbols, and what to do with design specifications and illustrations. This part provides a guide to proofreading and how to deal with the final stages of the publication process. An example of uncorrected and corrected index proofs is displayed on verso and recto pages for easy comparison - an improvement on the earlier edition where one had to turn the page constantly.
Chapter 8 introduces the skills and knowledge required in general book publishing and in some areas of specialist editing: mathematics and science books, medical and legal publications, government and corporate publications, academic publications, and newspapers and magazines. The last three mentioned are additions.
Although the first two parts are updated and restructured to reflect the changes mentioned in the first paragraph above, it is Part 3, 'The editor in the electronic age', that forms the significant addition and marks a clear transition from print-based editing to electronic editing.
Chapter 9, 'Editing on screen', is a substantial chapter (50 pages) as is the final chapter on editing electronic publications (46 pages). The authors assume good working knowledge of a recent version of Microsoft Word, the efficient use of a computer and competency in using the computer's file management system logically. In this regard Flann and Hill go well beyond Sabto's comparatively slender The On-screen Editing Handbook, which was reviewed in this newsletter last year.
They point out that editors must cater to the needs of 'information foragers' and 'information snackers' (p. 310) and know the difference between the two kinds of web users. Editors of websites also need a good understanding of the 'surfing' styles and expectations of various user groups, and have a keen eye for the design of static and dynamic text and images. Furthermore, editors in the electronic age need to deal with digital raw material, sound bites and video clips, as well as with issues in repurposing or reversioning documents from print to screen and with multipurposed publications.
The clear explanations, comprehensive checklists, questions to ask, helpful tips, tables, worked examples and screen shots provide invaluable practical help - and they answer just about every question a trainee editor or experienced practitioner may wish to ask about the challenges facing editors working in different media and contexts. Appendix 2 provides a list of organisations to contact for help and the comprehensive index will show its true value with greater use.
I agree with Flann and Hill's view of this edition of The Australian Editing Handbook as explaining 'many editorial practices and conventions that other reference materials - dictionaries, grammar books, the Style Manual … and house style guides - frequently do not cover.' (Preface, p. ix)
Consequently, I highly recommend this authoritative guide to editing in our rapidly changing times - it's an invaluable resource to add to your professional library.
Helen Topor
Do you remember your dreams? I generally don't, except perhaps just for a moment if I wake up suddenly. And yet one dream has stayed with me from the time that I was about five years old. I was being chased through the streets by an evil motorcyclist, and took shelter from him in one of those old red British pillar boxes, which was standing at the edge of the pavement with its door wide open, just room for a child to enter. It was half full of glass jam jars (?), but I climbed in on top of them while the motor cycle was revving round and round my refuge and rearing up, threatening to follow me inside.
That's the end of the memory: I have no idea how the dream ended or even if it ended. It has all the elements of the classic nightmare: the surreal situation, feelings of pressure and terror, and waking in a fright.
'Nightmare'. A strange word, with the implications of some enormous apocalyptic horse towering over us. When we have those awful dreams, are we 'riding the nightmare'? There is a respected feminist book with that title, but strictly speaking the nightmare is riding us. The name has nothing to do with horses, but personifies a beast that lies on top of us and puts those dreadful images into our dreams. The mare part comes from an old Dutch word, mare or maere, meaning a ghost that settles on you when you are asleep, stifling you with its weight.
In some other languages the word is more obviously oriented towards the sexual and the occult. The Italian for nightmare is incubo: the Shorter OED tells us that in medieval times an incubus was a 'feigned evil spirit or demon, supposed to descend upon persons in their sleep, and especially to seek carnal intercourse with women'. Susceptible young men had their demon too, their succubus, a word masculine in form but very definitely feminine in nature. (The feminine form succuba also existed in 17th century England, but she was just a common strumpet.)
In France a nightmare is un cauchemar, the mar coming from that same old Dutch root. The 'cauche' syllable harks back to a medieval French word meaning 'to crowd in on, to press'. A French text from 1375 explains: 'When it seems that something comes to your bed, appears to climb on to you and holds you so tightly that you cannot speak or move, this is what the common people call cauquemare, but the doctors call incubus.'
Russians simply use the French word, which they spell koshmar. Their 18th and 19th century love affair with the French language as an aristocratic alternative to the vulgar Slav has given them a great many words imported like that from France.
German romanticism led to Alptraum, conjuring up a vision of pleasant dreams of idyllic green pastures in a snow-capped mountain landscape, but current usage is more Gothic. Alp in this context, says my German dictionary solemnly, is 'in popular belief, the ghost that on a sleeper's chest sits and, through this, heavy dreams causes'. By the way, Alp was once spelt Alb or Elb - links there to English elf, a much nicer character!
What about our English mare, the female horse? It seems that if you follow the language back far enough, mearh just meant horse, although there are some apparent overlaps along the way with that old Dutch word for the naughty demon. The word horse comes to us from Saxon times, and has links to the modern German Ross, formerly hros. (The original title of Hitler's favourite musical, Benatzky's 'White Horse Inn' - it opened in Berlin in 1930 and has been playing somewhere in the world more or less ever since - was Im weissen Rössl.) You might have expected a mention of Pferd, the more usual word for horse, but Ross is both a bit more up-market and commoner in the South of Germany.
Just a moment - the Latin for horse is equus, I hear you say, where does that feature? In our word equestrian, of course. But the Romans had another word, caballus, for a more down-market horse, and when the southern Gauls saw the Roman cavalry - the equites - approaching, they tried to bolster up their courage by thinking disdainfully of caballus rather than equus. That's where cheval came from, and so down the line to our English words cavalry, cavalier and chivalry.
That may all seem a long way from 'nightmare', where we started, but once you start thinking about words it's so easy to let your thoughts run free... Next time you see an unusual word, or a common word in an unusual context, try pausing for a moment to wonder how it got there. As an editor, you may, of course, find that it shouldn't be there at all - it may be simply the wrong word, or the wrong use of a word. But dictionaries are wonderful time-wasters - unless you have much more self-discipline than I have, I'm prepared to bet that once you have your dictionary open you'll be following fresh leads on every page!
Peter Judge
Sources: The Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed. 2002 on CD-ROM and Shorter OED, 1980 edition. Most of the French bits are from Le Trésor de la Langue Française at http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf.htm. Other languages from various dictionaries. The book mentioned is Riding the Nightmare: Women & Witchcraft from the Old World to Colonial Salem, by Selma R. Williams and Pamela Williams Adelman, Harper 1992, found at www.pinn.net/~sunshine/book-sum/nitemare.html. And for more about German elves and demons than you would ever want to know, go to www.ruthless.zathras.de.
The 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:
• Working with Designers and Printers: on Saturday, 9 April, 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;
• Copyediting: on Saturday, 7 May, from 9.00 am to 1.30 pm, Helen Topor will provide you with basic information about the skills and tools required for this key element in your work.
All the information you need about content, cost and registration can be found on the web Notice Board at <www.editorscanberra.org>.
• Note that the Society of Indexers are also arranging courses in early April: Introduction to book indexing and Intermediate back-of-book indexing, on 4 and 5 April respectively - find a link to their details on our web site.
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
This month Canberra Society of Editors welcomes as full members Brian O'Donnell, Helen Rizvi and Patricia Stone. And a new associate member, Rachel Eggleton. We wish them a long and happy association with our society.
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 April 2005 and the copy deadline for the next issue is 1 April.
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, to Canberra Society of Editors, PO Box 3222, Manuka ACT 2603. If mailing, always provide a printout as well.