Monday, April 22, 2019

A to Z Challenge - S for Stet

Theme - Journalism jargons
When editors or proof-readers mark corrections but later change their mind and want to restore the original text, the term 'stet' is written.

It basically means 'please ignore the correction I made." In a way, it is the pre-computer equivalent of 'Cntrl Z'

I am not quite sure how the word originated, maybe some of you could throw light on it. My guess is it has some relation to 'status quo'.

In the pre-computer era, proof-reading and editing were done with pen or pencil on paper. And in those days, there were occasions when one had to use 'stet'.

But not now. With the invasion of computers into newsrooms, there is very little of proof-reading and editing that is done on paper; most of it is done online.

Nevertheless, sometimes editors would like to take a printout and do the editing on paper because some mistakes are more noticeable on paper rather than on the screen.

(This post is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2019".)

5 comments:

  1. Interesting! I cannot imagine the origins of that term. On a sad note, I see very little editing being done these days, both online and off. Self published e-books are, sometimes, outright atrocious. Dangling participles are a particular pet peeve of mine. Happy Blogging!

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  2. That's so interesting. I've heard the world, but I didn't know what that meant.
    Me, I write my first drafts on the pc, but I always do my revisions on paper. It helps me concentrate.

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  3. Editing on paper is easier. Easier to see. I have no idea where stet came from, but now that you mention it, I think I had seen it before. Just not much.

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  4. I am not absolutely sure. I think in Latin, stet means "Let it Stand"

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  5. @ Darla - Fully agree with you. There are typos and mistakes, in books, magazine articles and news stories.
    Frankly, I am myself guilty of not being able to do my best when it comes to editing and proofreading.
    The reason: content generation and content processing have become far more hectic than earlier days; so much so that we aren't able to keep pace.
    Earlier, the production process was much slower paced and it gave us enough time to revise the text and make it totally error-free.

    @ JazzFeathers - Thanks for dropping by and for the comments. It makes sense to do the revision on paper.

    @ Liz - Reading on paper also looks more real.

    @ Rajan - Ok. Thanks. Quite possible.

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