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To 'who' it concerns

Laura Houser

There are a lot of important people in this world, and they all have really important jobs. This year, especially, we're constantly reminded how important the president is. Business executives are also pretty crucial when it comes to running the world-whether that's into the ground is another matter.

Farmers, architects, professors, journalists, the manager of your local McDonalds-all are integral members of our modern society, and without them we'd all be out of luck.

And oh yeah, don't forget the copy editors.

Wait, copy editors?

That's right, copy editors (notice the repetition-it creates a nice rhythm, don't you think?).

Hello, I'm the News Editor and I fear most, if not all, of The Miami Student's readership have no idea of the reason for my existence. Actually the Miami University student body may have little interest in all the editors on staff, but News Editor always is the most elusive. Sports editor-OK, that makes sense. Editor in Chief-no problem there.

I usually try to explain my position as "copy editor extraordinaire," generally because it sounds fancy. But what this truly means is that every story you-the reader-see today is a hand-crafted masterpiece. Each line has been scrutinized, each word judged for its merits. I am "the" copy editor and nothing is published until it gets through me.

OK, there are the occasional typos. Inevitably "Octber" will make its way through three editors before making it to print, only to be caught the next day around 11 a.m. Copy editors have particularly flat foreheads, beaten down over the years by a succession of smacks to the head.

For most people, though, copy editing is about the driest and most unpopular job in the newsroom, the literary sphere and the rest of the world. This is evident by the severe lack of editing in classes such as English 111, where run-on sentences roam free and wild in their natural habitat. Re-reading a sentence and adding a period is clearly too much work for the modern college student, who is too busy to be pestered with such inane concepts as proper grammar.

But then again, who wouldn't shudder at the thought of devoting one's life to fixing commas, mending sentence splices and desperately trying to get verbs to agree with one another? That involves actually knowing the proper distinction between "who" and "whom," as well as harboring such shameful vocabulary as "gerund."

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I mean, do you know the plural form of "cul-de-sac?" If you said "cul-de-sacs," you're most likely a normal human being. You're also wrong.

Copy editors also seem pretty expendable. If Noah was paddling by at the brink of another apocalypse, I'm sure he'd take a few reporters, a couple dozen engineers and at least four or five marketing majors on his boat before even considering me and my lonely red pen. Why hang out with someone who's constantly correcting your grammar, anyway?

To put it simply, copy editors are perceived as the dentists of the literary world. They make you feel bad for not flossing, sadistically dig into your molars to remove the decay and are usually associated with feelings of general discomfort. However, unless you like rotting teeth, they're a necessary evil that all must endure in order to satisfy the greater good.

Copy editors are the same, serving the greater good of the literary and journalistic world. No one particularly likes their copy editor-they butcher stories and return it stained with red pen. Writers even advise ignoring your editor-they are failed writers, have no soul and are ultimately clueless.

I'd hate to think I'm a failure at the writing game this early, and I certainly believe I have a soul. However, what most people forget-particularly those outside the profession-is that copy editors are there to keep stories alive. Writers imbue an odd collection of words with a tiny spark, a flame that's brilliant in its beauty but ultimately susceptible to the elements. Shift it the wrong way and it's extinguished, the writing reduced to a heap of words. Editors, copy editors in particular, protect this flame, adding logs to what will hopefully be a bonfire, which will then inspire the same spark of life in the reader.

While writers (and I include myself in this giant category) may merely love words, copy editors are passionate about them. In fact, they obsess over them. Molding and shaping stinking piles of crap into perfect, effortless prose-it's what we live and breathe, man.

There are people behind the words you read, whether it's in your psychology textbook, an advertisement on television or your local library. These people believe in the power of words to communicate and transform society. Without this stop-gap, can you even begin to imagine the discord that would ring about our ears and the chaos that would ensue? Octber would follow Setember. Martin Luther King Jr. would have "has a dream." In Berlin, we'd all be jelly donuts.

Just as it's not exactly classy to walk around with a rotting smile, your words say something about you. Speak well and you will gain the respect of those who listen. Write well and not only will you receive better grades, but your ability to interact with the world will heighten immensely. I know we've been hearing "i before e..." since the second grade, but I promise, it actually means something.

We're in college-we're grown-ups now. Let's collectively recognize that fact (I know it's difficult), realize that "like" is not a real word in intelligent discourse and learn that there are three spellings of there-their-they're. But most importantly, let's think the next time we open our mouths. Until then, the copy editors will remain the background, drilling away, making sure you don't sound stupid.


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