MDBCs 08 Mar 2024

March 8 is Proofreading Day. The day promotes error-free communication and encourages everyone to spend some time updating and expanding his or her proofreading skills.

Proofreading is a careful examination and reading of any written text to spot spelling, grammatical, stylistic, and punctuation errors before its publication.

Proofreading or Copy Editing

While often confused with copy editing, proofreading does not usually include editorial revision. Unlike copy editors, who may receive copies or versions of the text throughout the writing or editing process, proofreaders only get to the see the final proof right before publication.

The job of the proofreader is to go carefully through documents and spot formatting and typography errors in the text. In contrast to a copy editor, who can fine-tune the text themselves after spotting errors, a proofreader is expected to send the text back to the writer or the editor for making corrections.

Proofreading and Technology

In recent years, with the emergence of word processing and typesetting software, the proofreading profession has undergone a sea change. Today, proofreaders do not need to use old-fashioned symbols to indicate errors - they can highlight errors right within the electronic text. New proofreading software has also cut down the time a proofreader needs to spend on a text.

How to Celebrate?

Celebrate Proofreading Day by combing through all your writings carefully and spotting mistakes and correcting them. It is only human to make mistakes, but it is also human to correct them.
Find ways to enhance your communication – proofread your emails and even phone texts and SMSs.
Spend some time learning the tools of effective and efficient proofreading.

Did You Know…

…that a 1631 reprint of the King James Bible was called the Wicked Bible because of a proofreading error? The commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” was mistakenly printed as “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

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When my wife was about to have our first baby, we brought a tape recorder to the delivery ward to capture the sounds of the birth, the baby's first cry and our doctor's voice saying, "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" We intended to use the tape as a fun message on our answering machine to help announce the birth to friends and relatives.

My wife's labor went relatively smoothly and, when it seemed appropriate, I inserted the blank tape and began recording. Shortly thereafter, our baby was born and we all heard the first cry.

The doctor held up the baby and, with tape rolling, loudly proclaimed, "Wow, will you look at the scrotum on him!"

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My son is an avid listener to our city’s police frequency, and he leaves the scanner on all the time. One morning while making his bed, I heard the dispatcher say, “Car 34, there is a five-foot boa constrictor in a front yard. The resident wants a policeman to come and remove it.”

There was a long pause, then some static. Slowly, a voice said, “We can’t get the car started.”

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According to the Internet: The inscription on the metal bands used by the U. S. Department of the Interior to tag migratory birds has been changed. The bands used to bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated as “Wash. Biol. Surv.”—until the agency received the following letter from an unhappy camper: “Dear Sirs: While camping last week, I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and want to tell you it tasted horrible.”

The bands are now marked “Fish & Wildlife Service.”

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Me: What’s the Wi-Fi password?

Bartender: You need to buy a drink first.

Me: OK, I’ll have a Coke.

Bartender: Three dollars.

Me: There you go. So what’s the Wi‑Fi password?

Bartender: “You need to buy a drink first.” No spaces, all lowercase.

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The photo is just a graphical recreation of what the passport would've looked like, created first by Heritage Daily, since access to the actual passport’s images haven't been made public.