Everyone makes mistakes…
Last night I was reading a book by a well-known author, Mario Puzo (author of The Godfather.)
I was happily reading along when all of a sudden my brain said “What? What did that just say??”
Here was the sentence: “The director was a tall, elegant man whose descendants came to America on the Mayflower.
“OOPS! That’s just not possible. Descendant means “child, offspring, heir.”
Obviously, the word they wanted was ancestors, but somehow that got missed in editing. I’m quite sure that Mr. Puzo knew the difference between those words, so he must have been suffering from a “brain pain” at the moment. And no editor caught it. Or maybe some ambitious editor didn’t know the difference and changed it from ancestors to descendants.
Whatever the reason, it sure did make me stop and look three times.
And it definitely proves that even a famous author, backed by a publisher and a team of editors, can let a mistake slip by and become published.
Posted: March 31st, 2012 under proofreading.
Tags: editing, proofreading, wrong word choices