In message <5a511.c641a32.40ae7...@aol.com>, jeria...@aol.com writes
Every lace group publication needs a proofreader. Every self-published lace book needs a proofreader.
Whilst I agree with what Jeri says, I would amend this to at least one proof-reader - preferably two or three. I spent about 17 years on the proof-reading team for Lace (The Lace Guild's quarterly magazine) and still proof-read the Guild's other publications (ie books and calendars) - and yes, we do have a style sheet to follow. I'm also sure I'm not the only one to have spotted an error in Lace post publication, as even with a team of five or six proof-readers mistakes do get through. As a previous Editor said, we are all good at spotting different things.
Whether words are one, or split, can vary according to the country of publication, and "house style". The Guild uses lacemaker, lacemaking, needlelace, bobbin lace, etc. As an English person, if someone mentioned laces to me my first thought would be to shoelaces, not various kinds of lace. I think we came to the conclusion on Arachne a while back that the difference was that 'lace' as a plural word referred to a number of pieces of lace, but 'laces' referred to more than one type of lace.
Recently on Facebook we've noticed a trend to run words together when they should be separate - Buckspoint instead of Bucks Point (which is the abbreviated term for Buckinghamshire Point), for example. When the erroneous form is used by a teacher (who in this case is not English by birth) it can be very confusing for new lacemakers who are only just beginning to learn lace jargon. This is where careful use of terminology in publications, and consistency in lace dictionaries is important, together with the understanding that UK-English, American-English and probably Australian-English are effectively separate languages. However, if we were to rule out the dialects (eg runners/weavers/workers) I think we would lose a lot of our lacemaking heritage.
The one thing that several publications have been attempting is to move to the more International CT, CTC, CTCT notation for stitches, as this avoids the confusion caused by terms such as 'whole stitch' - which can be CTC or CTCT!
I often tell the tale of when I was a medical secretary working in a hospital, with ten of us occupying the same office. One Tuesday morning not one of us could remember how many 'l's there were in 'always' - (whereas long complicated medical words we spelt correctly without batting an eyelid) and had to ask a passing doctor! (This was back in the 1970s, when we were using manual typewriters and correct spelling was important).
-- Jane Partridge - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
