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Remember the old tale about kids in church thinking they were singing about a teddy called “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear”? And who among us hasn’t heard about the reindeer who bullied Rudolph — you know, the one called “Olive, the other reindeer”?
Mishearing happens to authors, too, but sometimes the result isn’t as funny as Gladly and Olive are.
… guild-framed canvases…
When a frame features a gold-colored finish, especially if it’s been accented with gold leaf, it’s been gilded, or gilt-trimmed. This author meant to say gilt-framed canvases.
I knew he would demure about such praise.
One who acts shyly is demure, but when we shyly turn away a comment, or object to it, or take exception, the word we’re looking for is demur. Since we’re expecting out Mr. Killough to say something like, “Oh, what I did was nothing special,” the author intended to say he would demur about such praise.
… the small group allowed near the grave started to disburse.
Disburse refers to distributing things, usually money. The author meant that the people attending the funeral began to separate and go their own ways — they started to disperse.
… flakes … pommeling the frosted glass…
A pommel is part of a saddle. Snowflakes beating against a window are pummeling it.
Nearly six feet tall with a tussle of chin-length dark auburn hair…
It’s true that many a woman tussles — that is, she struggles — to get her hair to behave. But the word for a wind-swept, casual style that looks like fingers have been run through it? The word this author was looking for is tousle. When someone rubs a kid’s head and musses his hair, they’re tousling it.
The blades dutifully scattered the grey whisps to the far corners of my office….
The Snarky Editor likes to point out the correct meaning of the misused word, just for contrast — but she’s unable to do that this time because “whisp” doesn’t appear in her collegiate dictionary. The author meant to say the grey wisps — the thready streaks left when smoke begins to dissipate.
… living with your family in that retched one-bedroom apartment.
Retch refers to the unpleasant actions leading to upchucking, and both the present tense (retch) and past tense (retched) are pronounced as a single syllable. This author was looking for wretched, which is two syllables. It can mean miserable and distressed (that is, I felt wretched after retching for two hours) or very poor in quality, like that wretched one-bedroom apartment must have been.
“Geez.” He winches.
A winch is a machine intended for hauling, like the cable-holding drums a tow truck uses to pull a car out of a ditch. This character winces — he flinches, recoils, or shrinks back — to show his discomfort with the situation.
The Snarky Editor comes out of hiding occasionally to comment on the awkward, silly, and sometimes hilarious editing errors found in published books.
#snarkyeditor #everybodyneedsaneditor
Leigh Michaels is the award-winning author of more than 100 books, including historical and contemporary romance, non-fiction books about writing, and local history. More than 35 million copies of her books are in print in 27 languages and more than 120 countries. She is also a writing coach and book editor, though she promises to be snarky only in regard to published books.
To find out more, check out https://leighmichaels.com
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