Check the spelling, grammar, punctuation and facts. Then the subeditor’s real work starts

Every time I go to a wedding or party, I seem to have the same conversation.

Overbearing Git: “What do you do?”

Me: “I’m a subeditor.”

Overbearing Git: “Oh, so you’re basically a spellchecker?”

Then I mumble something about there being a bit more to it than that, and we move on to a more edifying topic (him).

Well, I’ve decided, after almost 20 years in the job, that I’m actually quite proud of what I do. It’s a demanding and (when done right) highly skilled job, and I’m tired of it being misunderstood. So I’m going to set down, for Overbearing Gits everywhere (and perhaps, given the way things are going, for posterity), a reasonably exhaustive list of what it is that subeditors do. No! Don’t go! Because I’m also going to give some amusing examples of the sort of things that would appear if we didn’t do what we do.

So, yes. Subs do check spellings. “Isn’t there a computer program for that?” interrupts Overbearing Git. “Hasn’t technology made you redundant?”

Not entirely, OG. Because a computer program wouldn’t pick up “he poured over his work” instead of “pored over”. A computer program would have no qualms with “ex-patriot” when “expatriate” was clearly intended. A computer program would blithely have given the thumbs-up to the article last year that talked about the subject’s “leaning difficulties”, and wouldn’t have batted a digital eyelid at this gem: “An MI6 officer was arrested by police in Madrid during the second world war dressed ‘down to a brasserie, as a woman’, a file disclosed today recalls.”

(Spellcheckers are also helpless in the face of proper nouns, foreign idioms and neologisms, all of which, in our business, turn up with tiresome regularity.)

In any case, at a guess, I’d say that spellchecking takes up only around 2% of our working day. We subs have many other important duties. We also check grammar. Approximately 2% of our time is devoted to addressing the usual bugbears: that versus which, sat versus sitting, and my personal bête noire, the dangling participle:

“Completed last year at a cost of around £2.5m, Alistair Baker from Northumbrian Water told the BBC that the ‘ferocity’ of some storms was ‘well in excess of the design capabilities’ of their defence schemes” (Guardian, September 2013). I’m aware that utility companies have had automated phone systems for some time – but surely this is the world’s first android spokesman?

Then there’s punctuation. Probably 3% of my average day is taken up by removing double spaces, correcting the punctuation around speech (which a surprising number of writers regard as optional), and inserting the missing comma in a set of parenthetical commas: “The programme director of the Cornerhouse, Manchester’s cultural hub reveals why Chetham’s library is a well-guarded secret” (easyJet inflight magazine, March 2013); “Yoko Ono will talk about her husband John Lennon, who was killed in an interview with Barbara Walters” (example from Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct).

Spelling, grammar and punctuation are the easy part. The facts need checking too (3%). Obviously, we can’t independently verify a report from the front line – but we can check job titles, geography, historical details and, often crucially, statistics. For example, one recent article on economics nearly went to press thus: “He will claim that consumer spending accounted for less than half the rise in GDP over the first half of this year, while a rise in exports contributed more than twice as much as that.”

There are also considerations of house style (2%). Do we prefer “adviser” or “advisor”? Mumbai or Bombay? Do we capitalise cheeses and dog breeds? Has the writer used any offensive, outdated or otherwise inappropriate terminology – “wheelchair-bound”, “commit suicide”, or (as of last month) “hermaphrodite”?

Another part of the sub’s remit is to keep an eye out for potential legal problems (1%). Are there any litigable phrases such as “bluffer’s guide” or “Portakabin”? Is any of the material libellous? Are there court restrictions on any of this information?

We also have to convert all distances, weights, temperatures and currencies (1%), make sure the tenses are consistent (1%), turn Americanisms into Briticisms, fillet out cliches such as “marked a watershed”, “landmark speech” and “elephant in the room” (1%), and remove duplications, contradictions, inconsistencies and, especially, tautologies (2%): “Welcome to our pre-match preview ahead of the Champions League quarter-final … “

Then there’s rewriting (25%). Talented as most reporters are, time pressures mean that not all their sentences are as polished as they might like when they arrive on the sub’s desk. Take this 71-word beast:

“Both Wilks and the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who was withdrawn from Damascus last October out of concern for his safety, took part in an unpublicised meeting at the beginning of the month, bringing together external and internal opposition groups, including the FSA, in Cairo, organised by the Doha centre of the Washington-based Brookings Institution thinktank, setting up a broad-based committee to hammer out a mutually agreed transition plan.”

It’s easy to see how it happens. Reporters often write cumulatively, adding little phrases, facts and clauses together as they go, and don’t always have time to check how the finished article reads. But if that’s the case, then it’s highly unlikely that the sub is going to have long to unscramble it.

(The current record-holder, which I regrettably failed to record for posterity, was the opening sentence of a jazz review, which ran to 126 words. And no, the writer wasn’t making a wry point about the performer’s self-indulgent improvisations.)

Sometimes, things just need a simple reordering. Take this example, from the First Great Western safety manual: “If it is not safe to remain on the train, strike cover of emergency release with fist (located above external door).”

There are plenty of mundane tasks, too: styling up the text – setting the font, font size, effects (bold, italic), leading, kerning, and so on (2%); removing unsightly breaks, widows (solo lines at the top of a column) and orphans (words sitting alone on a line) (1%).

By far the most time-consuming part of the job – accounting for about 40% of the total – is cutting copy. If all goes according to plan, the editor will decide how “big” a story is, ask the reporter to write to the appropriate length, the designer will carve out a space in the paper, and the reporter will file exactly the word count she was told to.

But plans gang aft agley. Stories change. Layouts change. And I’ve yet to meet a writer who doesn’t believe that, when an editor requests 1,500 words, it’s only because they’re too embarrassed to ask for more. “Really? Only 1,500 words of my scintillating prose? Oh, go on, have another 700.”

In practice, stories often turn up two or three times longer than the space available, and the trimming usually has to be done in short order. Which is a tall order, if you want to keep the structure of the article, work out which information is most important, ensure that you haven’t cut out a paragraph introducing “Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF” and kept a later one that refers only to “Lagarde”, and keep the writer sweet.

On the flipside, sometimes you find yourself with space to fill. Occasionally a story, on a subject you know nothing about, arrives six lines short, and you have to make it fit. You can’t just make things up, of course. You’ve either got to unearth some new information, come up with a more long-winded way of saying something (while maintaining the writer’s voice, of course), or – as an absolute last resort – use typographical cheats.

That leaves 14% of our time to spend on writing “furniture” (journalistic jargon for the “other bits of text” on the page: headline, standfirst, byline, pullquote, caption, label, picture credit, crosshead, cross-reference). Coming up with a formulation of words that piques the reader’s interest, accurately describes the story and fits in the teeny-tiny box can be a big ask, especially at two minutes to deadline.

And on all these matters, the sub must liaise with the writer, the editor, the desk editor, the picture editor, the readers’ editor, the editor of the style guide, the production editor, the web editor, the SEO editor, the chief subeditor, the revise subeditor, the photographer, the lawyer, the interviewees, the designer, the research and information department, the graphics department … and somehow find a compromise that makes them all happy. (From time to time, we also try to factor in the reader.)

Arguably the sub’s most crucial role, though, is to spot, and defuse, infelicities. It’s the most challenging, and the most rewarding, part of the job – and consequently, when we fail in our duty, the most embarrassing.

Can you spot what’s wrong with the examples below? And can you guess – no Googling – which ones slipped through the net?

“In 2010, when pro-royalist forces bloodily battled with pro-Thaksin supporters … ” (March 2012)

“The ICRC said it had been able to provide aid to the refugees who had made it to … the village of Abel … where many refugees have sought refuge.” (March 2012)

“As he was led away from the scene and down into the bowels of the velodrome and the crowd … ” (August 2012)

“He took over in a bloodless coup, which left 100 dead.” (2011)

“Hopes for a negotiated end to the crisis were dashed last week when Saleh suddenly returned from Saudi Arabia, where he had spent three months recovering from an assassination.” (Sep 2011)

“In April this year, Zuckerberg became an organ donor.” (May 2012)

“If the outcome of today’s referendum is a no, the Irish electorate that bothered to vote yesterday will have placed a bomb of their own underneath the entire structure of the eurozone.” (2013)

“Unusual sightings are not unusual.” (January 2012)

“Several riot police officers forced Roman Dobrokhotov into a police car just metres (feet) from Russia’s largest church.” (April 2012)

“Forensic archaeologist Lucy Sibun said various body parts were missing, including the hands, feet and right arm. No clothing or personal possessions were found during a fingertip search of the area.” (January 2012)

There. I think that’s a fuller picture of what I’ve been up to for 20 years. So next time Overbearing Git asks me what I do, I’m going to direct him to this article. Either that, or just say I’m a fireman.

When he isn’t spellchecking, Andy Bodle writes sitcoms and blogs at womanology.co.uk.

Media: Mind your language | theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2013/sep/20/mind-your-language-subeditors