NYT GoofUp

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 03/17/2002 8:19:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mam at THEWORLD.COM writes:

> On Sun, 17 Mar 2002, James Mullan wrote:
>
>  #Pity the subbie didn't catch this grammatical goofup before it made the
>  #print version ;-)
>
>  "Subbie"?

"Subbie" is short for "sub-editor", the British name for what in the US is
called a "copy editor".  On a newspaper the copy editor/sub-editor reads and
corrects all material before it goes into print, and also writes the
headlines.

Traditionally the copy editors worked at a horseshoe-shaped table.  Their
boss sat in the middle of the table, and hence was called the "slot man".  In
Britain this person has the somewhat oxymoronical title of "chief sub-editor".

      - Jim Landau