Whenever I fly, I buy a book at the airport. I tend toward mysteries/thrillers/suspense novels. Something to keep me occupied at the gate, or when I have a bit of downtime during the trip. Generally these are books I wouldn’t otherwise read, so it’s sort of a guilty pleasure for me.
(I have to add here that The Book was in the best-seller racks in Austin, Houston, and DC. Cheap thrill moment for me!)
Anyway, I bought a novel published by Ballantine Books, which I believe is an imprint of Random House. One of the biggies. About ten pages in, I encountered the first lay/lie confusion. It surprised me, because that’s not the kind of mistake I associate with a publisher like Ballantine/Random House. However, as I continued to read, I realized that there was not one single instance of lie in its intransitive sense (“to assume a reclining position”). It would have been bad enough had the editor not even tried to make the distinction between lay (transitive: “to put in a horizontal position”) and lie, but this was far worse: the editor used the transitive lay in all instances, regardless of which verb was required.
I wonder who I should contact about offering my services?
Eeek! It sounds like they need you, STAT. From the Latin statim, “immediately.” I bet you knew that. But still…I love that I finally *get* where that comes from. *g*
Ahem. Anyway. That’s a good–though disturbing–anecdote. Lay/lie is definitely tricky, but…still! Folks who are paid to know should certainly get it right.
I was very surprised. There were other mistakes throughout the book as well. And this was a paperback! Time was, someone would review the hardback and fix things for the paperback edition.
::sigh::
I’d have thrown the book away for that kind of poor editing (unless it was something by an author I liked enough to keep the book and put up with the cringe factor)…
I recently began read a short story where a woman was laying on the beach… I couldn’t finish it… I kept wondering what kind of eggs she was producing…
I was viewing it almost as a scavenger hunt: will I find the elusive lie?
Alas, it eluded me.
I hate that…
My podiatrist looked at me funny when he entered the exam room to find me thwapping myself upside the head with a book. I’d just started it and every page had truly unfortunate sentences… It was complete awful. (I believe it was “Crime Scene” by Larry Ragle.) I read it while I was at the doc’s, because it was the only thing I had, then through it in the “Get rid of” box as soon as I got home.
I hate that type of thing.
Signed,
Mouse
Re: I hate that…
Eek! A mouse!
Oh, it’s you. That’s all right then.
Yeah, I’ve cracked a spine or two in throwing particularly unfortunate books at walls.
Re: I hate that…
Hee hee! You Eeeked! I got you to eek! Yay me! {dances}
And “Mommy Deadest” got drop-kicked through my apartment more than once. But that wasn’t due to lots of unfortunate sentences and errors…
You can always try sending a resume to their managing editor (who is probably who handles production issues like copyeditors).
That’s always a risk, of course.
At the same time, a resume and cover letter doesn’t take that much effort, and does show an active levelof interest in working with that particular company.
Especially since this is for a freelance position, they can keep one’s info on file until a later date.
Looking for freelance work always involves sending out more CVs than one gets gigs.