Editing

Hey, I guess everyone already asked someone else to correct or edit a text he/she wrote, at least once. I often have the problem when I ask my dear to help me check and correct my French in emails or letters. Although I only have had enough classes in french, I missed practicing for a couple of years. So, because of this I have to shape up when it comes to punctuation or the use of the subjonctif for instance. Anyway, all good reasons for me to ask her to go over some of the texts I wrote.

So, from time to time I ask her, but then I encounter the small problem that she changes more than just spelling or grammar. She changes the style of the text. Which is understandable, because sometimes things are said in French just a slightly different way then in my head. Not only that, the Swiss French has conclusively a more formal style than the Belgian French.

Now, when I correct a text in English I have the habit of carefully marking the difference between the corrections based on spelling/grammar and those on style. In the latter case I add a small note explaining that this or that is said in another way in English. A third kind of corrections are those where I have the feeling the writer wants to tell something which is either different from what he/she is writing, or it is not absolutely clear for the reader. Until now this has produced good results and feedback from the writers. They say it helps them a lot when I make these distinctions and that's what the correction is for, right? More even, it helps to give them some insight in the corrections.

Why did I write this? Oh yes, my dear... In a clumsy way I just wanted to thank her for her help in correcting my French and also apologizing because it is not that simple to correct my text. I'm quite the pain in the ass, especially if I don't get the kind of feedback that I expect/need/want/... I put the bar quite high up there. Fortunately I have a dear who has the patience and curiosity to discover my "delicacies". A big thanks to her.

iNR