Editors’s Obsessions
As a copy-editor and proofreader, the first judgement I make about a new acquaintance is whether or not they use the apostrophe correctly. This marks me out as a particularly annoying and unattractive person, but I care little for approval; my interest is in correct English and punctuation.
My life as a proofreader and copy-editor has been devoted to words and the creative use of the semicolon (and, yes, semicolon is one word and not hyphenated). And the last full stop is in the right place; and so is this one. And there is no rule against beginning a sentence with and, no matter what your teacher said. People who use colons and semicolons indiscriminately have a reservation in Hell, but perhaps you think this judgement too harsh?You see just how easy it is to become an old bore!
Pondering
Ponder is a lovely word, don’t you think? It means to consider, to think about or reflect on. It comes from a Latin root: ponderare, which translates as to weigh. So you can see that thoughts may be weighed as readily as flour.
And that brings me neatly to Ponders End which is in the borough of Enfield. No, it doesn’t come from a Latin root, but from a fourteenth century chap called Ponder. He had a mill pond or fish pond. I like to think he had a flour mill and weighed his flour on a pendulous lever. There might be an old mill left in Ponders End, you never know. No apostrophe, by the way.
Editors and Proofreaders
Pondering the origins of words and their changing usages is a mark of an editor. It may not help the editorial process much. And learning to be an editor or proofreader doesn’t require you to become a linguist or etymologist, but most editors I have known just love words. And there are far more odious hobbies. Collecting butterflies I find particularly obnoxious, for example.
