Operation Collation: Complete

All last week we “collated,” which means we gathered round the institutional faux-wood table that dominates our wee office and compared piles upon piles of proofread galleys for our November issue. It’s kind of like that scene in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie where the everlasting gobstoppers are unveiled. (Editor’s Note: This is a metaphor. Please do not lick The Cincinnati Review to see if it will get smaller.) At any rate, typos were spotted, stacks were circled, sinks were compared, spreads were aligned, and questions were asked. Not just questions about namby-pamby comma usage, mind you. The queries of the meticulous-minded editor are both weighty and legion. Our questions are more like: If one is referring to a personified scrotum, is the proper pronoun “he” or “it”? and Huh, honky-tonk is a weird word. Wonder where it came from? (Turns out the origin is unknown.) Also, “barista” is not a feminine form, though so many people were worried about emasculating the dudes making their cappuccinos, the word “baristo” has come into existence. Also, twilight refers not simply to early evening light but also to the light just before dawn (take notes, Stephenie Meyer). Brian Brodeur discovered, in Douglas Silver’s story “Found Peoples,” a gruesome rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter: “. . . a viscous honey seeping from the eyes, decomposing piecemeal with the tides.” We had a lengthy discussion about trademarks, and how it’s ridiculous to enforce the caps on products that are so commonplace they’re considered generic, such as kleenex, dumpster, band-aid, xerox. Underscoring this point, Matt O’Keefe told an anecdote about how the copyeditor of his book insisted that he cap “styrofoam.” Matt resisted. The editor, not to be gainsaid, changed the reference to “polystyrene foam,” though he told Matt he would also accept “plastic foam.” We observed a moment of awed silence. Then Nicola said, “Okay, then. That’s what bad editors do. Let us not be among them!” We subsequently pricked our palms bloody and smacked them all together on the faux-wood table. (Collation is never complete until we seal a pact or two with some hemoglobin glue.) Stay tuned for the exotic rituals that attend the arrival of revised pages. . . .