Posted on 03/27/2017 6:51:11 PM PDT by firebrand
It happens.
Something intended by New York Times editors and reporters for one audience gets seen by another.
We in the newsroom were reminded this week to be more scrupulous in flagging phrases like “Here are New York Times stories about —” with embedded links, which serve web and mobile readers but make no sense if they appear in the newspaper, as they have.
This contemporary problem is not the only way The Times has challenged readers’ comprehension and sanity over the years.
Occasionally, a “cq” will creep into Times copy. This standard proofreading mark means that what may look like an error — or a word, number or phrase that could easily be rendered incorrectly — is in fact correct. It stands for “cadit quaestio,” meaning “the question falls,” if you speak Latin. If you don’t speak Latin, it means, “Just leave this alone and move on to the next paragraph.” When a “cq” makes it all the way on to whatever platform you’re reading us, it’s embarrassing. It signals that in our eagerness to be accurate, we have made an error.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This appeared today on page 2 in a somewhat altered form.
Apparently the NYT is rigorously accurate, factual, and perfect 99.999% of the time.
But once in awhile, they print a “cq” or “tk” that they regret.
ping
I remember when the papers switched to cold type. A couple of friends were working on this for different newspapers. I also remember fondly the Linotype days. We used to have to travel by air to read the proofs on a rush project—no computers, no FedEx.
LOL. That seems to be their point.
The funniest mistakes are the “live mic” mistakes—when something insulting that was meant to be a placemarker shows up in print for all the world to see.
In the early digital typesetting days, there were specially air-conditioned rooms about 12 feet square containing the computer. Designers sent a marked-up manuscript to the typographers, who would have someone code in the manuscript and send proofs by messenger in — what — two days, if it was a two=page manuscript. Then the designer marked them up for changes, called the messenger, sent them back and waited for the changes. Then... back, forth, back, forth... This was in the 1980s. Things were up to date! Final proofs were glued to white cardboard with wax instead of cancer-inducing rubber cement!
PS
I have a box of wood type and lead type and small lead or zinc illustration slugs in my basement. Someday I’ll make that collage. It will be heavy as lead!
I’m just here for the Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright photos.
show off
The printers were told that you could not air-condition the press room (where the presses were) because the presses could not work in an air-conditioned environment. As if they ran on cathode tubes! It was all false. The real reason was that the rooms were huge, with high ceilings, and it would have cost a fortune, as they found out later.
I took a course called Typesetting and Book Design and we actually set things in monotype. You really can get the p’s and q’s mixed up. Even poetry, which was an SOB. WonderYoung ful experience. workers in the industry don’t have any idea how it used to be before everything got adjusted automatically when you made one correction, like the proof is a spreadsheet!
Of course the early thrill with global corrections had its downside and laughs too. I remember a book about furniture where someone decided to change the number style from spelled out to figures, forgetting that there was the word “fruitwood” in many places throughout the book.
Wonderful experience. Young workers . . . ETC.
What does “fruitwoood” have to do with it?
asdf ;lkj
It came out as frui2od.
Their “error” section always blames the mistake on “an editing error.” I used to have a folder called “Blame the Copyeditor.”
Excerpt: I hate to stop and look up a fact
So nothing has changed at the NY Times.
Why didn’t you just have it faxed?
TTIWWP!
Oh! Mind your “p”s and “q”s!!!
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