Supervisor-mum and I are copy-editing this volume in earnest now. Copy-editing puts me into epistemological and ontological mini crises. Every bout of sitting in front of a document, staring at a play citation, and wondering whether the debate over arabic v. roman numerals really matters[1], and checking every single style guide and recent collected works to see what formatting decision they made, and wondering, “why, if arabic is the standard style, does this one stubborn style guide insist on doing numerals?!”, ultimately ends with me holding my knees and rocking myself to soft murmurs of “no roman, no”. And when I sleep, I dream of small children following me about throwing small pebbles at me. “Pedant, pedant, pedant!” they all shout. While I cover my face with my hands, and run off, calling back “Clarity! Clarity! It’s for the greater good!”
It really is.
13 December 2011 ~ Hamilton
End notes.
[1] arabic v. roman numerals And it is so lowercase initials for both. I looked it up in the OED.
