Russell Cruse
  • Home
  • The Rothko Room
    • Writing The Rothko Room
    • The Rothko Room Characters
    • The Council
    • The Real Rothko Room
    • Rothko Room Covers
    • The Rothko Room Music
    • The Rothko Room Puzzles
    • Locations in The Rothko Room
    • Waifs & Strays >
      • Churchill
      • The Origin of The Council
      • The First Meeting of The Council
  • Books
    • Head Count
    • The Circling Song
  • Weblog
  • Comments
  • Ukulele Stuff
  • Weblog Selections

Homophonophobia

9/11/2013

1 Comment

 
Homophones can be a problem in a society that doesn’t read.  Some common  ones (which many of us will have seen) may be forgiven: compliment and complement are often confused and in a variety of permutations of meaning; although I’m less tolerant of principle and principal, whose meanings are so similar that confusing the two can have… implications.  “A principal I always adhere to…” could receive more raised eyebrows that the prepositional abuse might warrant.

One would hope that even were a writer to perpetrate such errors, a decent editor would pick them up so I was astounded when my wife showed me a line from a book, published by Pan Macmillan, whose author is a "widely acclaimed" writer with some fourteen books in print.  It reads (if memory serves),
"...the moonlight fell across her taught breasts..."

One wonders just what it was they were learning.

When I posted this on a well-known authors’ site, one comment was, “Typos will sometimes creep in”.  I responded that in my view, this was no typo but a severe misunderstanding of the word in question.  To mistake taught for taut is such an astonishing gaffe, one wonders that editor is still employed; perhaps he/she isn’t any longer but many others are.

I have seen, for example, references to “easedropping”, which I assume was what the writer/editor believed the word, “eavesdropping” to be; and a recent article in The Independent assured readers that a party was “held in a marquis on the lawn…”  Very accommodating of him. 

Whenever I notice an issue in my own work that has escaped the net, I am livid with myself and rush out a new edition immediately.  Mostly, they are missed commas or speech marks (although there was one severe grammatical faux pas that I can’t bring myself to admit to here!) Never have I got a word “wrong” in the way I’ve described and the prospect of paying for someone to edit my book and still be worried about gaffes would be too much to bear.

1 Comment
    Follow this blog

    RSS Feed

    UK Amazon Kindle Forum's group-authors-bookshelf book montage
    UK Amazon Kindle Forum 222 members
    Somewhere else for those who hang around on the official Amazon Kindle Forum to slouch around.

    Our group-authors-bookshelf shelf



    View this group on Goodreads »

    Archives

    November 2015
    August 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    June 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

    Categories

    All
    A Clockwork Orange
    Alice Cooper
    American Literature
    Andrew Mitchell
    Anthony Burgess
    Blogging
    Book Cover
    Cover Design
    Crossword
    Eastwood
    Editing
    Emperor's New Clothes
    English
    English Language
    Films
    Frazier
    Gary Barlow
    Godfrey Bloom
    Homeless
    Homeless Man
    Homophones
    Internet Down
    John Farris
    Julian Fellowes
    Kelsey Grammer
    Language
    Left-Wing
    Literary Fiction
    Lord Mcalpine
    Mark Rothko
    Nomophilia
    Nomophobia
    Patrick O'Brian
    Pleb
    Politics
    Prejudice
    Pretentious
    Promoting Literature
    Publishing
    Raimi
    Reliance On Mobile Phones
    Richard Matheson
    Self-publishing
    Semiotics
    Spin
    Twitter
    Without The Internet
    Writing


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.