[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Of human errors

[P. Alexis Nguyen]

Monica Boukhalfa:
> Booo! Her response to you was rude.
> I completely agree with you.
> In the words of Hermione, 'ignore it!'

The response may have been a bit rude, but I don't think that's reason
to ignore the very valid point behind it.  As Julie implied, personal
errors are one thing, and professional errors are another, and Sandy,
in her response, was talking about errors of the professional sort [or
so I thought].

I have to say that agree with Sandy.  Like it or not, people are held
to a very high standard of almost perfection when it comes to their
professional lives, which is probably why so many are willing to
forgive blunders in their personal lives.  I mean, my company is doing
our annual audit right now, and I can tell you that if our files were
rife with errors like JKR's plot is full of holes, many jobs would be
on the line, including mine.  Our auditors don't forgive errors; they
want perfection.  That's the sort of thing that I expect of JRK and
her slew of editors.

No, I wouldn't be like the auditors and expect perfection, but
frankly, when an error gets to the point when even I, error-ignorer
extraordinaire, get tripped up on it on the first read, it's a problem
that should've been caught by someone more intimately involved with
the publishing process.  The fact that it's JKR's story makes it
mostly her responsibility to catch it - catching errors is something
done objectively and doesn't require one to pass any critical judgment
on it, so the argument that it isn't JKR's problem because she's too
attached to things doesn't hold too much water.  (I will concede,
however, that is isn't all JKR's fault.  A good deal of the errors
that made it into the books should've been caught somewhere along the
line before the books went to press.  Moreover, some errors are just
going to be inevitable - the Lupin transformation and moon cycle thing
was something that, unless she were a different type of writer, I just
never expect that JKR would get right, and she didn't.)

Therefore, Carol, your blunder may have been excusable, but using that
as a benchmark to excuse JKR's much larger ones is much like comparing
apples to pineapples - the names are similar, but they aren't too much
alike.

~Ali, recognizing that her points probably aren't going to end up
being as clear as she would've liked but she's already used up much
work time writing this email