It was kind of funny to be lugging this box full of paper halfway across the country. I found myself hugging it close, "my book! my precious book!" As if there was any chance I might forget and leave it behind in the hotel room. Like Gollum and his "precious," except not as evil I hope.
It had been a long time since I had used proofreader's marks, and I never had as much practice with them as Georg, who worked for Raven-Lippicott (whose name I have probably spelled wrong) a few years ago. I've had to decipher incomprehensible changes from clients often enough; I didn't want to do that to anyone else! So I found a page of proofreader's marks online, printed them off, and kept the page next to me as I worked. I printed a page for Georg too, but I don't think he needed it.
I knew some of the marks (like one underline for italic, two for small caps, and three for upper case) from graphic design. But some of the marks are a bit arcane & I found myself wondering, is she really going to know that a dot inside a circle means a period? But I guess the whole point of a symbol set like that is that they work as long as people use them. Joanna mentioned that our changes were clear, so I guess it was worth the effort.
A bit of trivia: did you know that stet, which means "ignore this change, leave the text as it was originally," is Latin for "let it stand"? Learn something new every day I guess.
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