June 2017

Next meeting:

Tuesday, 4 July 2017

Mid-year dinner

Greek banquet at the Athenian Restaurant

6.30 pm pre-dinner drinks7.00 pm dinnerCost: $45 includes three course banquet and welcome drink on arrival.

Venue: Athenian, 11 Barrack Street, City (between York and George Sts, near Wynyard)

The banquet comprises a selection of vegetarian and non-vegetarian options but if you prefer a full vegetarian option or have other dietary requests, you can include this information within the booking system.

Bookings: https://iped.memnet.com.au/MemberSelfService/EventBooking.aspx?selectedEventId=96

August meeting:

Annual General Meeting

Tuesday, 1 August 20176.30 pm for a 7.00 pm start

Venue: Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street (near cnr Bathurst Street), Sydney.

The Macquarie Dictionary in 2017

InsideFrom the committee 4

Reading matter 5

Jeremy Fisher OAM 5

Member discounts 5

Professional development 6

At the May 2017 meeting of Editors NSW, our guest speaker was Susan Butler. As editor of the Macquarie Dictionary for more than 30 years, Susan continues the process of maintaining the print and online editions of the Macquarie Dictionary. She keeps her eyes and ears open for new words through the media, via Macquarie’s online page, and submissions from a band of dedicated callers and emailers. What follows is an abridged version of her presentation.

A dictionary is a text which describes a language in terms of its lexical items. Word by word, it offers information on spelling, pronunciation, meaning, grammatical function and word origin.While at a basic level dictionaries are workaday and practical books, at another

level they are significant cultural documents. As the writer David Malouf says: ‘The dictionary is one version of a living society – it is the version of that society that has to do with speech; and speech, of course, is something that is absolutely essential to everything in our lives. Speech as a daily exchange between people; speech as communication; speech as expression and self-expression; speech, and the use of words, as reflection, as the whole business of thinking and reasoning out who we are and why we do things, and where we are, and where we are going; to that extent, it is one version, a portable one, of what we all are, what we have created: this extraordinarily complex thing that is a society in action.’

continued on page 2 Photograph and image: Macquarie Dictionary Image: CC0

2 June 2017

What’s in a dictionary entry?If we look at a typical dictionary entry we can see that it covers the following aspects:The form of the word, that is, the most common form

given as the headword and any other reasonably common forms listed as variants.The meaningIllustrative material to give the word a context and

possibly give a common collocation, that is, words that commonly go together. We say a high mountain, not a tall mountain, although there is no clear reason for this except that it is just what we do, which makes it interesting dictionary information.Derived formsEtymologyUsage notes are created using a very particular way of

writing, with a house style and a dictionary structure to give the reader a sense of comfort. It avoids duplication or rambling by having a minimalist approach to definition writing. You have to say enough to cover the essential aspects of meaning but you quickly learn where to stop. That said, it is always the aim of the dictionary to be helpful

to the user and to anticipate needs and interests. A dictionary has a reputation for being objective, almost

scientific, and so it is in terms of the information it conveys, but it also must be a communicative work. The definitions have to read well and be helpful. An editor has to be a good writer. Our favourite example in this regard:

‘Dirty weekend noun Colloquial a weekend spent with a lover in sensual delight.’It says it all but says it well.

How do words get into the dictionary?To earn a place in the dictionary, a word has to prove that the community at large accepts it. That is to say, it has to turn up a number of times in a number of different contexts over a period of time. We are all familiar with words that only our family, our friends, or those who share our workplace know. We do not expect those words to be in the dictionary because they are not generally used.Traditionally, dictionary editors amassed evidence of the

general use of words by writing up a card for each instance of the word in the books they were reading. If you ended up with many cards for one word then you could say that it was clearly in use. These days, editors still rely mainly on reading – books, newspapers, the internet – and listening – radio, TV, people chatting – to be alerted to the existence of a word. The dictionary also has many correspondents who point out words and usages that they think the dictionary ought to record. The website has made this connection with the dictionary user very easy for both parties to handle.Once we think we have a word that might make it into the

dictionary, it is a great deal easier these days to prove that it has general currency. In the first place Macquarie has its own corpus or computer database of Australian writing, fiction and nonfiction, to scan for citations. Then there are the large newspaper databases, ever-increasing in size, and an expanding number of sites on the internet. Trove is particularly useful for historical items.

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Finally, there is our own in-house computer notebook where editors jot down possible new entries. It is easy to have a look and see if someone else has noticed the word and to check how many times it has appeared in Australian writing.Of course, all our sources must be Australian for evidence

of currency in Australian English. We are not compiling a British or American dictionary, after all.

Which leads us to the question of which English?The English language can be both large and small depending on the needs of the user. At one end of the scale we have the freedom to communicate throughout the English-speaking world. In this kind of English we need to be international, outgoing and up-to-date. At the other we are intensely local, knowing full well that only the speakers of our kind of English will swiftly comprehend and respond to us, but they are the ones to whom we can best express the realities of our shared existence.This tension between the international and the local has

resulted in a shift in the definition of English. No longer do we think of it as one language spread throughout the world but as different Englishes, shaped by different communities of speakers, that nevertheless have more than enough in common for their shared or amalgamated English to act as an international language of communication.

Specialist termsThere is another kind of English that travels the world and that is specialist jargon. Anyone who is on the internet anywhere in the world will be encountering words like cyberspace, etailing, netiquette, search engine, hotlink and cookie.Equally, enthusiasts for particular sports and games

will share their terminology. This is a very old kind of internationalism which can draw together, for example, scientists from every land. Some items are terms for equipment related to the specialist area (the jaffle iron in cookery, the behind post in Aussie Rules) or to rules, procedures, techniques and so on (the closeout in surfing, the exit poll in voting), or to the people associated (the grommet in surfing, the aerialist in Aussie Rules, the spin doctor in politics). Some are formal terms, others are colloquialisms such as boomer and hospital pass.The dictionary includes a number of specialist words where

the criterion of general use in the community is limited to general use among the group of people who are active in that specialist area.

Our own variety of EnglishOpposed to our internationalism is our localism, whether that is at a national, a regional or even a home level. At a national level we share a pronunciation, a set of words,

a spelling system and a set of usage standards that mark us out as speakers of a kind of English not quite the same as other national varieties. This unique variety we refer to as Australian English.

3 June 2017

We need both forms of English – the local and the international. The value of the latter is the obvious benefit to global communication. The value of the former is that we retain our own sense of identity as a community and a culture.It is amusing that every spelling or usage that Australians

do not like they tend to ascribe to American English. An aggrieved caller complained that Macquarie gave as its headword dispatch, a spelling which his teacher had said was wrong and not to be used in her class. Was this the evil influence of American English on the Macquarie Dictionary? His anger dissipated when I explained that dispatch was a spelling introduced into English in Dr Johnson’s dictionary. The theory is that it was a typo because Dr Johnson himself used despatch and every other instance of the word in his dictionary appears as despatch. Ever since, English has wavered – dispatch or despatch? My caller had the grace to laugh.What we are dealing with here is a user expectation that

their dictionary will guide and lead them in the ways of good English. Indeed, that the dictionary will rebuke the user when necessary, encourage them to pull up their linguistic socks, tell them firmly what is right and what is wrong.Children encounter this kind of dictionary all the time, and

rightly so. Their dictionaries are intended to be educational. An unfortunate consequence is that many children grow up without making the shift to a grown-up’s dictionary and still believe that ‘the dictionary’ was written by God as some kind of addendum to the tablets of stone. It has been the greatest good fun to enter a class as a dictionary editor and explain to them that not only is ‘the dictionary’ written by a real live human being – and at this point they size me up – but that they can contribute to it.Adults should know better, but it is amazing the number

who want the dictionary to lay down the law, and, more than that, to lay down the law as they received it from their teachers in school, forever fixing the language choices that were made in Class 6A of Woop Woop Primary School in the 1950s or 60s.I sometimes dream of being in charge of this kind of

dictionary because, from the editor’s point of view, it would make life so much easier. I could have my memories of a language education immortalised and used as the template for everyone else.But no, it has fallen to my lot to write a descriptive

dictionary and suffer the consequences. There are some people who write to me in editorial anguish

and to whom I reply sympathetically. I had one such email the other day. It happens when the dictionary is being used as a reference for a writing group – a tool to bring uniformity of style to several different writers.The question this time was about the spelling of

noncompliance. The group of writers were professional people with a legal background working in government departments. Macquarie offered them noncompliance with no hyphen. They preferred non-compliance with a hyphen, so the editor in charge asked for an explanation for Macquarie’s choice.My response was:

This sounds like a clash between general practice and the rather more conservative legal practice.

There is, as I am sure you are aware, a tendency to shed hyphens where they are not thought to be necessary. Editors in publishing houses and newspapers would be following advice of the kind given in the government Style Manual which says that prefixes attached to words do not normally need a hyphen unless it is there to prevent misreading, such as in the case where the vowel ending the prefix is the same as the one beginning the word. Hyphens also clarify the meaning of a few formations that might otherwise be confused with established words. Examples of hyphens that are there to prevent confusion

are: de-ice, re-enter, and re-creation (to differentiate from recreation).This same Style Manual, published over a decade ago, felt

that the set of e- words were so new and the e- suffix so small that they needed to retain the hyphen.I doubt that these days anyone has a problem with email,

ebook, ezine, ecommerce and so on.This brings in the other rule – that familiarity is everything.

In their infancy compounds need to have the hyphen to allow the reader to analyse how they have been constructed, but, once everyone gets used to them, the hyphen is dropped.In the case of noncompliance, there is no difficulty or

possibility of misreading if the hyphen is dropped. The legal convention is stuck at the point where the compound was created. The rest of the world has moved on. I can see evidence for both sides in citations and I will add the hyphenated form as a variant in the dictionary entry.This looks as if I am sitting on the fence. The dictionary

is a guide to usage, but if you know that there are particular patterns of usage that relate to your specialist area then there is no reason why you should not follow them. Almost every institution has its house style guide to supplement the dictionary.It might be simpler and easier to drop the hyphen but if the

legal and government community is wedded to it, there is no reason why they should not have it.In usage matters the dictionary deals with ever-changing

details within broad trends.An example of a broad trend is the one above: the

disappearing hyphen as a feature within a general tendency to throw out all kinds of punctuation.Punctuation has always been a matter of actual need

tempered by fashion so there is scope for quite a lot of variation in the treatment of texts, with a tension between community expectations and individual taste.The question of hyphens in compound nouns – the presence

or absence, that is – can cause some people a problem because there seems to be no logic to it. What line are we to take with canegrowers, wheat growers and fruit-growers, and can that line be sustained with oyster growers – is that oyster-growers or oystergrowers?If canegrower and canecutter are both solid, why does

cane sugar seem to resist any efforts to bring its elements together?Most compounds start out in life as two words that become

fused in our minds, and then consequently in print, as the compound gains currency and we cease to analyse it.

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continued on page 4

4 June 2017

The final complication is that all language is in a state of flux so what you see as two words today may well be hyphenated tomorrow and set solid the day after that. The result is an editor’s nightmare if that editor has the kind of mind that likes to group words in orderly sets and sit them up straight at the lexical table.

Ever changing usageThe word agreeance is an example most commonly found in the phrase to be in agreeance with someone.Educated people say this without any sense that there is

anything wrong with it. My theory is that it gives them an abstract noun form for the state of mind as opposed to agreement which they feel is a contract, a piece of paper – something more concrete.The word is in the dictionary with a usage note – a very

mild usage note because it seems to have broad acceptance.There are usage notes for such problems as:• the shift from bored with to bored of• the shift in the meaning of infamous to mean ‘famous’• the use of literally as an emphasis marker• the blurring of the distinction between adaption and

adaptation• the complete loss of the distinction between alternate and

alternative• the compounding of the phrase a lot into an adverb alot.In all these usage notes we rely on corpus evidence. Often

all you can do in the dictionary is to point out to those people who think there is only one way of doing things that there is more complexity than they realise.

The digital formNow that dictionaries are becoming available in digital form they are adapting to suit the new environment and the different expectations of users.

Online there are no limitations of space and so some of the rules for what was proper to put in the dictionary, and what was not, are becoming obsolete. Now the editor can include whatever is a possible entry and can research material at a much faster rate and the demand is no longer that the dictionary present what is best in the language but that it be as close to the ‘now’ of language as is possible.With dictionaries available online, on mobile phones, on

various digital devices, we can have a dictionary to hand wherever we may be. Search engines resolve for us that question that haunted print dictionaries – how do I find a word if I do not know how to spell it! Our lexicographical future is rosy.In the print dictionary we don’t have space to give citations

for each word. Indeed, there are rules about how to make illustrative material concise, partly so that it directs the reader’s attention to the point at issue, and partly so that the dictionary does not expand with elaborately written example sentences. Online this is no longer a problem. We do not have a corpus of illustrative sentences attached to the dictionary yet but that will come and will fill out the definition by providing specific examples.These days the prescriptive dictionary is limited to the

domains of education dictionaries or learner dictionaries. The flagship of Macquarie is a descriptive dictionary which is as complete a record as possible of Australian English. Our goal as dictionary editors lies in providing the most detailed record we can which gives words pronunciations, meanings and etymologies but also provides a guide to context and an indication of the opinions of the language community about the status of a word. It is tricky but not impossible.

Transcribed by Susie Pilkington

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As we race towards the end of our first year of national membership under IPEd, the committee continues to work with national office to help maintain a full schedule of events for branch members and to fine-tune the running of this newly formed corporation.

The year’s calendar of events is almost complete, and you will find de-tails on both the IPEd website and the Editors NSW website as information is updated each month.

We are investigating subsidies to of-fer a small number of NSW members who wish to attend the IPEd conference in September and are willing to report back to us, either through speaker presentations or articles for the newsletter. This important service will allow all branch

members to receive as much news and information on the conference as possible. Editors NSW will advertise the available options shortly, once the details have been finalised.

Our dinner meeting for July is organised and details of the event are on the websites and included here in the newsletter. We are fortunate, again, to have publishers donate books as prizes and will look forward to our tradition of drawing winners for prizes during the evening.

The NSW Editorial Services Directory will cease to exist from 1 July and this is a reminder that if you have not created an entry in the national Editors Directory, it is timely to do so now.

We are also planning for our first branch AGM to be held on Tuesday, 1 August. Nominations for committee places will be called for as part of this process. An email with details has recently been sent to all members.

Julie Ganner and Susie Pilkington

From the committee

Copy deadline for the next (July) issue of Blue Pencil

is Friday, 14 July.

5 June 2017

For this Blue Pencil we have gathered a short list list of some popular blogs with an international flavour that are written by and for editors. In a future issue we will look at blogs written by or for

Australian editors. Which blogs do you find helpful? Do you regularly publish a blog? Email your suggestions to Lilla Wendoloski, at ednsw.profdev@iped-editors.org.

• An American Editor (https://americaneditor.wordpress.com) by Rich Adin and associates contains over 1,000 blog posts (‘essays’) including detailed descriptions of editing processes and the use of editing tools. • The Book Deal (http://alanrinzler.com/blog/) by Alan Rinzler discusses book publishing in the USA. His blog is ‘for writers about the strange and inscrutable way books are published and the big changes going on in the business today’. • CMOS Shop Talk (http://cmosshoptalk.com/) by the editors and staff of the Chicago Manual of Style aims ‘to bring clarity, education, and amusement to anyone who works with words’.

Editors NSW wishes to congratulate Dr Jeremy Fisher on being awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) ‘for services to literature, to education, and to professional organisations’.Jeremy is a past president of the (then) Society of Editors

NSW. Over the years, Jeremy has been greatly involved in

Australian literature: as an author of fiction and nonfiction, an indexer (awarded the inaugural [then] Australian Society of Indexers [AusSI] medal for his work on the index of the

• Copyediting Blog (https://www.copyediting.com/category/blog/) led by Erin Brenner delivers bite-sized practical advice on matters such as how to negotiate fees as a freelancer, own up to your mistakes and network at conferences. • Daily Writing Tips (https://www.dailywritingtips.com/) delivers articles addressing grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage and vocabulary, written for a general readership. • Grammar Girl (http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl) is Mignon Fogarty’s much-followed blog and podcast on grammar. Recent posts cover punctuation in dialogue, character development and rules of writing. • The Proofreader’s Parlour (https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog) contains Louise Harby’s advice and reflections for editors, proofreaders and writers. Recent posts cover book design, marketing for freelance editors and self-publishing. • The Subversive Copy Editor (http://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/blog/) is written by Carol Saller, editor of the Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A and author of the book with the same title. Lilla Wendoloski

Australian encyclopaedia 4th edition ]Grolier Society of Australia, 1983]), an editor, and advocate for authors and the Australian industry, particularly in executive roles with the Australian Society of Authors.Since 2010, upcoming generations have been benefiting

from Jeremy’s skills and experience at the University of New England, in northern New South Wales, where he is senior lecturer in writing in the School of Arts.

Elisabeth Thomas

Reading matter

http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au.

http://www.macquariedictionary.com.au.

Jeremy Fisher OAM

6 June 2017

Upcoming workshops

The business of being a freelance editorFriday, 7 July 2017, 9.30 am – 4.30 pmPresenter:Dr Rhonda Daniels AE established her freelance editing business Right with Rhonda in 2013 as a sole trader. Learn from Rhonda’s experience of the highs and lows of starting and building a successful home-based freelance editing business. Rhonda is an active member of Editors NSW and her local business association, and regularly undertakes professional and business development activities.

Description:Being a successful freelance editor is about more than being a good editor. Learn how to set up your own successful small business that works for you, meets your needs and is sustainable. This workshop is for editors thinking about starting their own business or freelance editors in the early stages of being in business. Sessions include:• knowing the numbers: understanding income, hourly rates,

expenses, tax, and paid and unpaid time• getting clients: knowing your strengths and extending

them, identifying ideal clients and work, and undertaking marketing• reducing risk: identifying, assessing and managing risks in

your business• sharing tips and resources for small business practice,

business development and professional development• identifying post-workshop actions to develop your

business.Bookings close Wednesday, 5 July 2017.

Writing and Editing Life WritingWednesday, 16 August 2017, 9.30 am – 4.30 pmPresenter:Rae Luckie has been mentoring, editing and facilitating writing workshops for 20 years. With a PhD in auto/biographical writing, she is a non-fiction mentor for the Australian Society of Authors, is the NSW Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) manuscript assessor, and has judged the FAW Walter Stone Award for Life Writing since 2010. Her published works include ‘Writing Through Grief’ in Dr Eric D Miller (ed.), Stories of Complicated Grief, ‘Love Began…’ in Selwa Anthony (ed.), What is Mother Love?, ‘Among My Souvenirs’ in Frank Moorhouse (ed.), Best Australian Stories 2004 and ‘It Might Come in Handy One Day’ in Mark Thomson (ed.), More Blokes and Sheds.

Description:With the increasing popularity of memoir and genealogy, there are many opportunities for editors in the field of life writing. Life writing includes memoir, autobiography, biography and family history, and each subgenre has its own specific requirements.This workshop is ideal for those interested in editing,

assessing or mentoring writers in this rapidly expanding field. It is also useful to those interested in techniques to improve their own life writing.The workshop covers:

• enhancing life writing: practical creative writing

• ascertaining the client’s needs, expectations and intended audience • exploring possibilities: from memoir and family history to historical fiction • enriching writing: research and TROVE • opening a can of worms: family secrets and the ethics of life writing • towards publishing: pitfalls and perils; copyright, defamation and permissions.This is an interactive workshop involving class instruction,

creative writing exercises and Q&A. You will receive a sample client questionnaire, sample publications and handouts addressing research resources and publishing issues. Participants are asked to bring some smooth, lined writing paper and a free-flowing pen, preferably with a wide barrel.

Venue for both workshops:UTS Short Courses venueLevel 7, 235 Jones StUltimo NSW 2007

Cost for each workshop: Members $220, Affiliate members $220, Non-members $350, Concession $132 (members distance rate more than 200 km from Sydney CBD). Includes all drinks and meals through the day, including tea and coffee at registration.

Other forthcoming workshopsEditors NSW workshops to be offered this year include: • ‘Writing for the Web’ with Grant Doyle • ‘Punctuation for Editors’ witht Glynis Osborne.If you have any suggestions for workshops that would

interest you, please email your ideas to our workshop coordinator, Lilla Wendoloski, at ednsw.profdev@iped-editors.org.

Other learning opportunitiesThe following courses may be of interest to editors:• ‘Getting In Shape, Online’ (https://www.asauthors.org/

events/event/getting-in-shape-online) is a one-day face-to-face workshop designed to help authors, designers and publishing professionals improve their digital marketing skills. The workshop will be hosted by the Australian Society of Authors and held in Ultimo, Sydney on 11 July 2017. • ‘English Grammar and Style’ (https://www.edx.org/course/

english-grammar-style-uqx-write101x-3) is a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) presented by the University of Queensland’s Professor Roslyn Petelin. The next course date has not been announced yet, however you can bookmark the website or register with edX to be notified of future offerings.• The Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) in the

UK offers online courses on topics such as proofreading, copyediting, fiction editing, grammar and references. These courses are available to members of IPEd at a discount. (https://ipedmembers.memnet.com.au/MyMembership/Resourcesforeditors/Memberdiscounts.aspx)

Lilla Wendoloski

Professional development

7 June 2017

Editors NSW 2016–17 committee President: Julie Ganner

Email: ednsw.president@iped-editors.orgVice-president:

Zoë Hale Email: ednsw.vicepres@iped-editors.orgSecretary: Rhonda Daniels

Email: ednsw.secretary@iped-editors.orgTreasurer: Russell Noakes

Email: ednsw.budget@iped-editors.orgNewsletter editor: Elisabeth Thomas

Email: ednsw.news@iped-editors.org

Mentoring coordinator: Shannon Kelly

Email: mentoring@editorsnsw.comSocial media coordinator: Shannon Kelly

Email: online@editorsnsw.comFreelancers lunch host: TBC

Email: lunch@editorsnsw.comMeetings coordinator: Teresa Llewellyn-Evans

Email: ednsw.events@iped-editors.orgWorkshop coordinator: Lilla Wendoloski Email: ednsw.profdev@iped-editors.orgIPEd councillor: Michael Wyatt

Email: cr.ednsw@iped-editors.org Accreditation Board representative (NSW): Linda Nix

Email: ednsw.ab@iped-editors.org Office manager: Susie Pilkington

Email: ednsw.admin@iped-editors.org

Editors NSWPO Box 828, Willoughby NSW 2068 Voicemail: (02) 9294 4999http://www.editorsnsw.com

© 2017 Editors NSWISSN: 2202-1361 (Online)

Blue PencilEditor: Elisabeth ThomasAssistants: Robin Appleton and Zoë Hale Blue Pencil is available in interactive digital format (PDF). Open with Adobe Reader to get the best results. Published: generally 11 issues a year (combined December – January issue).Your comments and contributions are welcome. Post them to the Editor, Blue Pencil, Editors NSW, PO Box 828, Willoughby NSW 2068, or email the editor at ednsw.news@iped-editors.org

Copy deadline for the July issue is Friday, 14 July 2017.The views expressed in the articles and letters, or the material contained in any advertisement or attachment, are those of individual authors, not of Editors NSW.

Advertising ratesFull page $375; half page $200; one-third page $125; quarter page $100; one-sixth page $75 (half of one column). Circulation: approximately 400. Please note that the committee reserves the right to decide whether advertisements are appropriate for this newsletter.

MembershipEditors NSW is a branch of Institute of Professional Editors Limited.Details of memberships are available on the IPEd website http://iped-editors.org.

Professional listingUse IPEd’s national Editors Directory (ED) http://iped-editors.org/Find_an_editor.aspx for professional members.

Committee meetingsAll members are welcome to attend Editors NSW committee meetings, generally held on the second Tuesday of each month. Please contact the office manager for details if you wish to attend the next meeting.

IPEd contactsChief Executive Officer, ceo@iped-editors.orgCommunication Officer, communication@iped-editors.orgFinance Officer, finance@iped-editors.orgMembership Officer, members@iped-editors.orgCompany Secretary, secretary@iped-editors.orgAdministration Officer, admin@iped-editors.org

Image: CC0