At work, I regularly receive requests to look over documents and sometimes they’re phrased in a way that really gets my back up. Sometimes the offending formulation appears even in the title of the email containing the request, making me ill-disposed to the task before I even know what it is.
Let me, then, take the opportunity to make something abundantly clear: I DON’T FUCKING PROOFREAD. I’m not sure if this is sufficiently forceful, so I’ll repeat it just for emphasis: I DON’T FUCKING PROOFREAD.
Let me take the liberty of setting out the following definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/):
‘proofread’ - read (printer’s proofs or other written or printed material) and mark any errors
‘edit’ - prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it
When I receive a text, I don’t just correct errors. I assess what the writer seems to me to be trying to say. I consider whether that’s conveyed in the best English for the task. If not, I try to make it better, using the kind of language a native-speaking lawyer would employ. In my eyes, that constitutes editing, NOT fucking proofreading.
If you refer to my job in the way I prefer, you’ll make me happy. And why would you not want to make me happy?
