February 2023 – Subbing Clinic

#570

i newspaper, February 27, 2023

This is a classic example of the lack of curiosity I am always moaning about. How can you possibly send this through without saying how many wins he already has? You might as well not use the story. For the record he has 723 wins so needs another 77. Incidentally it looks to me as it this is an agency story as the identical wording appears in the Mail. The ‘i’ sub has cut it above the paragraph about the number of wins he already has. This is lazy and incompetent.

#569

“I find all Mr Kirwan did outside the supermarket, when the defendants were by the trollies, was to admonish them for their trouble-making and anti-social behaviour in the lavatories.” Mr Justice Fraser said.

BBC News online, February 16, 2023

This is a common error – the plural of words ending in ‘ey’ is ‘eys’, not ‘ies’. Thus trolleys, flunkeys, lackeys, donkeys etc. Also storeys for a building in Britain, but in the US it is spelled ‘story’ so there the plural would be ‘stories’.

Note the careless punctuation error in the BBC piece, a full point at the end of the quote instead of a comma. Sigh.

I cannot stress strongly enough that it takes years of experience to make a good sub-editor. When I was a junior sub, almost everyone else in the department was older and wiser, and the benefit of their experience was passed down to me. A chief sub would often point out how things could be improved. These days most older subs have been dispensed with and there is no one to teach or mentor the younger ones. Staffs have been so reduced that no one has time to guide anyone else.

This clinic is an attempt to pass on my experience using real examples. I would love to receive items from others as I do not read every paper every day. I will add new entries as I come across them.