Dear Ken
Your account of editing is a little bit like the report of the Station Master at Casino describing the Australian railway system via a tellling of what he does most days. I'm sure some editors of some publications do as you say. And, I'm sure thousands of others also have a Merriam-Webster's on their desktops (real or virtual). I'm also sure that editing, as a practice, exceeds the "ready to hand" account in all directions.
cheers
keith russell
oz newcastle
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Ken wrote - in part
There is a simple definition of the verb "to edit." As used here,
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines the verb edit as: "1 a : to
prepare (as literary material) for publication or public presentation b : to
assemble (as a moving picture or tape recording) by cutting and rearranging
c : to alter, adapt, or refine especially to bring about conformity to a
standard or to suit a particular purpose <carefully edited the speech>."
This is an appropriate definition, since Merriam-Webster's is the preferred
desk dictionary of professional editors at leading publishing houses and
academic journals. (Scholars also frequent the Oxford English Dictionary,
but most OED definitions are far too detailed to be useful for simple
applications. Editors use it, but Merriam-Webster's is the one that most
keep ready to hand.)
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