laneefe

I have a very different relationship to copyediting -- so maybe I'm a freak among freaks -- but the more publications you work for, the more evident it is that right and wrong, good and bad are not the most productive ways of relating to articulation. Moreover, because language is essentially figurative, the drive for clarity is doomed in its inception; i.e., the worm is in the core. You can call that last bit redundant, but some people call it “repetition with a difference,” without which there would be very little shared reality. If you want to call it redundancy, then redundancy is built into language and its use; it is necessary if there is any hope in the dream of communication. In addition, the more you study the history of print and books, the more evident it is that standardization and consistency are not at all a requirement of literacy (be it the reading or writing kind), intelligence, or persuasiveness. These qualities are a function of one’s ability to recognize the possibilities of meaning and negotiate them in a given linguistic situation.

The existence of copyediting is in part a symptom of an ideological orientation toward Enlightenment rationality and order, and style guides are a kind of institutionalized “narcissism of small differences.” Though I wouldn’t want to begrudge anyone the opportunities for pleasure in this crazy world, I personally derive only moderate pleasure from rationality, order, and discriminating small differences. The greater pleasure I get from copyediting (when I get it) is not in correcting mistakes or being “right” or producing “good” copy. I don't generally see mistakes as such. When I am reading copy, I see the way language gets used both artfully and artlessly in all these creative, accidental, overdetermined, fascinating ways. For me the excitement is in the prism—the refraction—not in the rainbow (so to speak).