Proof reading?

I read a great deal and it is annoying to see mistakes which should have been spotted during proof-reading. It suggests sloppy editing, and gives a bad impression. Another area where standards have slipped.

I can also spot very quickly whether the author is British or American, simply by the standard of English.

sodapop In this case you were mistaken, but you are absolutely right that proof-reading has become very poorly done or is even non-existent these days. There is far too much reliance on the automatic spell check.

More than 40 years working in publishing means that I have a very sharp eye for literals and other inaccuracies. Dan Brown had no idea where the American Embassy is in Paris; Lee Child didn't know about British pub opening hours back in the day and in some detective story I read recently the body was lying prone with its eyes staring at the ceiling – obviously Death of a Contortionist.
Even if the author gets it wrong, there should automatically be checks by the editor, copy editor and proof-reader. Things can still slip through because nobody knows everything, but too much slips through these days.

I have no idea whether the story is true, but it is said that many years ago OUP fined its editors and proof-readers for any mistakes that appeared in the final printed version. I would guess that such a regime was brutal but effective – and wouldn't happen these days.

Just for the record, I am still embarrassed by a few real horrors I let through when I was green and and in my salad days all those years ago.

For the record, dessert is not strictly speaking pudding; it consists of the fruit and nuts that follow pudding. Of course, we all eat four- or five-course dinners which end with dessert (as above) before the ladies leave the gentlemen to their port.

As probably the editor or proofreaders at the publishers of your book did.
Who was the “well known and prolific author”?

Ok Maw I give in. I will strive for perfection in all my dealings with Gransnet in future.

And seriously, if I was going to make an issue out of something, I would check my facts first.

I am sorry I had no intention of being patronising!
I often have recourse to a dictionary, online or real when I have seen something wrong so often that I begin to doubt myself.
Why is that “patronising”?

Well thank you for that Maw who would have thought of a dictionary.
I thought I was right so clearly no need to check the dictionary.
I now know I got it wrong, thank you to those of you who explained without being patronising.

You’re correct maw! Although according to Mr Google many people these days are unfamiliar with “deserts” in this context so using “desserts” in this phrase has become acceptable! Who knew, not me! ?

Sometimes any word can look wrong if you look at it long enough - even “the” but the etymology of this word shows why it is the way it is.
You could always check in a dictionary first if you are not sure.

But it just looks so wrong

Did anybody else’s children enjoy a book called “Basil the Great Mouse Detective” ?
Maybe it should be renamed “The Great Mousse Detective? “
Oh dear sodapop you must be really

I've been having a good laugh about it all anyway, which will have extended my life a little.

Clotted Comeuppance?

Clearly, people usually think they do know the word.

Avenging Blancmanges?

Oh it is (bangs head against wall) - why start a thread complaining about something which has been right all along?
.
Blimey

Not worth shouting about, all the same.

How about the Caramel Crusaders?

To use desserts instead of deserts is, IMO hardly a negligible mistake - it is a whole different word.
Like “tow the line” instead of “toe the line” (line up sideways with your toes touching a straight line)
Or “reign back” instead of “rein back” ie pull back on the reins and nothing to do with being a king or queen.
Basically if people don’t know a word they should either find out or just not use it.

NO IT SHOULDN’T sodapop unless you mean puddings!

Deserts = what is deserved
Desserts are puddings

The expression meaning that which is deserved^was originally ^just deserts. The phrase is the last refuge of an obsolete meaning of desert—namely, something that is deserved or merited. But because most modern English speakers are unfamiliar with that old sense of desert, the phrase is often understandably written just desserts.

Using just desserts is not a serious error, and it is much more common than just deserts in 21st-century texts. Some people still consider it wrong, however. Whether to pay this any heed is for each of us to decide for ourselves.

Should be Just Desserts Maw

Urmstongran

desert or desserts ?

Deserts, in the sense of 'things deserved' has been used in English since at least the 13th century. A citation in which it is linked with 'just' comes from 1599, in Warning Faire Women:
"Upon a pillory - that al the world may see, A just desert for such impiety.

Desserts?

Am I thick? (Don’t answer that!)
What do you want it to be?

Perhaps the Just deserted.