I've written before about Muphry's Law, which states that if you write about misprints or mistakes, then there will be a misprint or mistake in your own work. If you thank someone for proofreading your book, there will be a proofreading mistake in the book. Of course, there is a stronger version of the law: if you thank someone for proofreading your book there will be a proofreading error in your thanks. I've just started reading Daisy Hay's enjoyable, deservedly well-reviewed Young Romantics. In the acknowledgments, Hay thanks Candia McWilliam 'who very kindly scrutinsed [sic] a set of proofs'. Of course, maybe, in a Nabokovian way, that misprint is a tribute to the effectiveness of McWilliam's scrutiny.
Published on December 08, 2010 03:23