And I am a flaming bitch of an editor.
I like words to be correct. Perfectly correct. Eloquently, stylistically, fabulously correct. In fact, I am so careful with words that watching someone else throw them around is like dragging my eyeballs over hot coals. So I edit with all of the subtlety and all of the rage of a prizefighting bull trapped in a china shop with nothing to eat but crack cocaine. Misused relative clause? Unnecessary passive voice? Struggling syntax? Don't just expect correction. Expect a SMACKDOWN.
In reality, though, my passion for liberating texts (the Form II Arabic verb حرر means both "to edit" and "to liberate;" you've seen the verbal noun of this verb, تحرير, in the news lately: Tahrir Square) can seriously get out of hand. Whenever I edit term papers for my parasitology students I always have to send them a follow-up e-mail explaining that my direct and often ruthless comments aren't meant to be rude. I never expected this compulsion to display cross-linguistic carryover, as I'm absolutely not so sharply skilled in Arabic composition as I am in English, but on two separate occasions I have gone Rambo on fellow Arabic students' texts (in class, mind you; this is public) and had to apologize afterward. I dare you to make me react the way I do when I'm editing in any other situation--I know for a fact you won't be able to push me into it. But show me a misconjugated verb, a mixed metaphor, and a misspelled relator pronoun, and HULK SMASH!
This fits perfectly into my life's current theoretical framework: 
2 comments:
Reading your blog makes me happy. If you could lend me some intelligence it would be much appreciated! Thank you.
Katie Cannon? Hi.
To jess- I literally imagined you as the hulk editing papers. It was a great visual. Also with deep red ink. Perhaps tearing some papers with your teeth. Throwing your head up and laughing evilly a few times. It also made me quite happy.
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