LOTR ebook erratum and ebook quality

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by Quexos

The difference would then be "professional proofreaders" on one side and amateur proofreaders on the other. What is your point ?
Because mine would be that in this issue, it seems amateurs are often better at proofreading than professionals. The real question is why ...

The difference, I would imagine, is that some publishers do not seem to want the expense of paying proofreaders.

[John the Miner]

OK, then, let's forget about proofreading (amateur or professional), put a big, conical hat with a "D" on it on our heads, sit in front of our screens and gladly accept the shining spelling and grammatical examples thrown up by the social media sites as the way to go ...

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

OK, then, let's forget about proofreading (amateur or professional), put a big, conical hat with a "D" on it on our heads, sit in front of our screens and gladly accept the shining spelling and grammatical examples thrown up by the social media sites as the way to go ...

What do the postings on a social media site have to do with errors in a purchased ebook?

I fail to see the point you are trying to make.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

What do the postings on a social media site have to do with errors in a purchased ebook?

I fail to see the point you are trying to make.

I think he's lost his mind and is ready for the asylum. He's making no useful point here. In face, none of John's messages have made any point worth making.

If I am reading an eBook and I happen to notice errors, I will mark them and fix them after I've finished reading unless the any of the errors are recurring and annoying enough that I have to fix them before continuing. When I am done, I might not have a perfectly correct eBook, but it will be better then it was before.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

What do the postings on a social media site have to do with errors in a purchased ebook?

I fail to see the point you are trying to make.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I think he's lost his mind and is ready for the asylum. He's making no useful point here. In face, none of John's messages have made any point worth making.

I thought the point was quite clear. Let's forget about proofreading altogether, and just blindly accept the degraded state of the English language. If it's good enough for social media, why not for professional purposes?

Rather than nitpick over what exactly is a proofreader, I'd much rather see a book that's at least been read by a human and undergone some basic attempts at error correction; punctuation, capitalization, proper use of hyphens (not simply because the word was hyphenated on paper), OCR errors fixed, etc.

[John the Miner]

That's exactly what I meant.
If the world's languages (to be more precise, English) are going to be bastardised to a greater degree by the internet and social media, and, what's more, these bastardisations become accepted as the norm because the standard of education has slipped drastically and fewer and fewer teachers take the time to correct the students, then there's very little point worrying about whether the text in your ebooks is spelt right, or punctuated right, or grammatically right.
If you "proofread" the ebooks, spot the many literals contained therein and then correct them to your heart's content, in many cases it would be like pissing in your wetsuit: it gives you a nice, warm feeling inside; it makes you feel good while you're doing it; it gives you a great sense of relief; nobody else is likely to see you do it; and, best of all, you're the only one who knows you're doing it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

If you "proofread" the ebooks, spot the many literals contained therein and then correct them to your heart's content, in many cases it would be like pissing in your wetsuit: it gives you a nice, warm feeling inside; it makes you feel good while you're doing it; it gives you a great sense of relief; nobody else is likely to see you do it; and, best of all, you're the only one who knows you're doing it.

That's why some of us like to proofread public domain texts, John, and post the results here (and elsewhere); precisely so that others DO see them and benefit.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

That's exactly what I meant.
If the world's languages (to be more precise, English) are going to be bastardised to a greater degree by the internet and social media, and, what's more, these bastardisations become accepted as the norm because the standard of education has slipped drastically and fewer and fewer teachers take the time to correct the students, then there's very little point worrying about whether the text in your ebooks is spelt right, or punctuated right, or grammatically right.
If you "proofread" the ebooks, spot the many literals contained therein and then correct them to your heart's content, in many cases it would be like pissing in your wetsuit: it gives you a nice, warm feeling inside; it makes you feel good while you're doing it; it gives you a great sense of relief; nobody else is likely to see you do it; and, best of all, you're the only one who knows you're doing it.

Let's say I read a book, make all the corrections for the errors I have found while reading. I then pass this book over to my wife to read and she reads it. She then doesn't have a books with as many (if any) errors in it. It's a better read for her. If I reread that book someday, it's a better read for me.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

That's exactly what I meant.
If the world's languages (to be more precise, English) are going to be bastardised to a greater degree by the internet and social media, and, what's more, these bastardisations become accepted as the norm because the standard of education has slipped drastically and fewer and fewer teachers take the time to correct the students, then there's very little point worrying about whether the text in your ebooks is spelt right, or punctuated right, or grammatically right.
If you "proofread" the ebooks, spot the many literals contained therein and then correct them to your heart's content, in many cases it would be like pissing in your wetsuit: it gives you a nice, warm feeling inside; it makes you feel good while you're doing it; it gives you a great sense of relief; nobody else is likely to see you do it; and, best of all, you're the only one who knows you're doing it.

I'd just prefer an ebook I purchase to be error free, if I'm being honest. Kinda like the paper books I buy.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

One does not pay for an eBook full of errors.

Yes one does, even if inadvertently. I must have a dozen ebooks that I've paid for but are unreadable because of gross formatting errors, and neither the vendor nor the publisher has deigned to answer my emails asking for a refund.

[John the Miner]

BTW, has anybody made a comment on the plural of the word 'erratum'? How many of you would correct it when you "proofread" it? I await with bated breath ...

[plib]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

BTW, has anybody made a comment on the plural of the word 'erratum'? How many of you would correct it when you "proofread" it? I await with bated breath ...

A thankless task no doubt, being exanimatus. Head up, and remember, "nitor in adversum, nec me, qui cætera vincit impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi"

Or, to put it another way, "facio liberos ex liberi libris libraque"

[John the Miner]

I would have thought all the "proofreaders" around the joint would have jumped on that one right from the word "go".
But, being a professional proofreader with about 50 years' experience, what would I know?

[plib]

Originally Posted by John the Miner

I would have thought all the "proofreaders" around the joint would have jumped on that one right from the word "go".
But, being a professional proofreader with about 50 years' experience, what would I know?

Not enough to put line spaces between your paragraphs apparently.

[John the Miner]

Well, if I happened to be doing this professionally, maybe I would have. Seeing I'm not, I'm not worrying about it.
Why should style be an issue in a discussion like this? I don't always put my right foot on the floor first when I get out of bed ...