#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24 Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.
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PS to "silly mistakes": a common misconception is that copy editors will spot your silly mistakes. They might ... but then again, they might think the mistake was the authorial intention and let it pass. CEs vary wildly in their approach (never say competence) and your trad publisher's commissioning editor is busy managing workflow (editing gets done on the side, in their own time).
So don't rely on the editors cleaning up your messes.
@cstross I bought Lev Grossman The Magicians ebook. The first word of the book is misspelled and it’s the protagonist’s name “Quenctin” Unimpressed. Then the pseudo Narnia explanation and my DNF circuit kicked in.
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@bellinghman @snap2grid Libre Office (and Microsoft Word) both permit conditional search-and-replace (disguised as "change and find next"). Vi editors have had it all the way back to the 1970s, as has emacs.
@cstross @snap2grid Ah, that's probably what I was thinking of, yes
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I once changed a character's name from Allan to Ben, and later changed it back.
Reading through the manuscript, I found I had thus invented the Allanch seat.
@davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I remember an early harry potter book where one of the characters said something apartmently.
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@davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I remember an early harry potter book where one of the characters said something apartmently.
@landley @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross What, without using the suffix -um?
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@nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I once got some copy back from a (lovely, brilliant) academic who'd been promoted to Professor, so she'd find-and-replaced every instance of 'Dr' in the document, inventing the word 'professoriven' in the process
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@landley @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross What, without using the suffix -um?
@jmax @landley @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross s/apartment/flat/
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@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross another book did this and resulted in particitrousers...
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@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross another book did this and resulted in particitrousers...
@quixoticgeek @owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I'm sorry, but this is hilarious.
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@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross Obviously, your immediate course of action is to create an #occutrousers entry on #UrbanDictionary.
Edit: It exists. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=occutrouser
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@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross
I get the impression that occutrousers are a good thing, at least in this case. Though I can imagine that if different occutrousers replaced these it would be very bad.
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@nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I once got some copy back from a (lovely, brilliant) academic who'd been promoted to Professor, so she'd find-and-replaced every instance of 'Dr' in the document, inventing the word 'professoriven' in the process
@alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross yu. I changed a character's name from Roy to Fred, and had him sailing up the Channel in a destfreder.
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#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24 Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.
Character name changes. If for some reason you change the name of a character you *really* need to double-check that it's changed *everywhere*. Hint: regular expressions and global *conditional* search/replace are your tools. Also how to manage word stemming with regexps. Then triple-check *everything*. Otherwise—guaranteed—you'll flip a character's name in one paragraph and the internet will never let you forget it!
@cstross
The good old "dawizard" from D&D comes to mind.
Hint for the unitiated: 4d6 dawizard. -
@quixoticgeek @owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross I'm sorry, but this is hilarious.
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@owent
Soup adverts all over again.
@alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross -
@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross
May I assume that instead of dollars the bill was payed in puppetars?
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@owent @alicemcalicepants @nullcolaship @davidtheeviloverlord @cstross
No no no; "trousers" are plural, so the next line should be "Are they going to fall down?"
<Cue custard pie fight>
<Ahem>
Sorry. 3:O(>
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@cstross
The good old "dawizard" from D&D comes to mind.
Hint for the unitiated: 4d6 dawizard. -
@cstross
The good old "dawizard" from D&D comes to mind.
Hint for the unitiated: 4d6 dawizard. -
#WritersCoffeeClub Apr 24 Share a silly mistake you've made while writing.
Character name changes. If for some reason you change the name of a character you *really* need to double-check that it's changed *everywhere*. Hint: regular expressions and global *conditional* search/replace are your tools. Also how to manage word stemming with regexps. Then triple-check *everything*. Otherwise—guaranteed—you'll flip a character's name in one paragraph and the internet will never let you forget it!
I think the canonical example was a US newspaper - the New York Times, possibly - stating that the economy was "back in the African-American."
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@cstross
The good old "dawizard" from D&D comes to mind.
Hint for the unitiated: 4d6 dawizard.
