The Panics
The other day I was watching a show that had a Spanish word on the side of a truck. I paused the scene and gaped at the screen for a moment, dismayed.
Is that really how you spell that word? I asked my mom, who spent her high school years living in Mexico and still knows quite a bit of Spanish.
She looked at me wide-eyed, because…that’s a weird question. “Yes…?”
“Oh,” I said. “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Actually, I’d made a lot of terrible mistakes. I scrabbled for my laptop and pulled up the manuscript—the manuscript I’d already dubbed “Final” and turned in for formatting—and began triple-checking all the foreign-language phrases that teenage linguaphile Tracy uses in the book. What I found made me LOSE MY DAMN MIND. Accents were missing! Pronouns were misplaced! Words that should be capitalized weren’t and words that shouldn’t be capitalized were! It was my literal nightmare.
How could this have happened? I thought, in utter embarrassment and despair. I was so careful.
At least, I thought I’d been careful. I’d gone over the text probably close to forty times, in addition to sending it out for editing/proofing. But clearly, my scrupulosity was bested only by my hubris.
Why hadn’t I asked a Spanish speaker if “diálogo” needed an accent? (It does!) Why didn’t I double-check my subject-object pronouns with someone who speaks German? (Ein Deutschsprecher!) Why would I just blithely trust Google Translate with so many foreign-language phrases, yet devote hours to researching the appropriate use of a hyphen? (It’s a complicated matter that can’t be summed up in a pithy parenthetical remark—ask me later!)
Over the next few minutes I spiraled into paranoia. I HAVE TO CHECK THE ENTIRE THING AGAIN, I wailed. OTHERWISE EVERYONE’S GONNA KNOW HOW CARELESS I AM. WHY DID I EVEN ATTEMPT TO ADD FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PHRASES WITHOUT COMPLETING RIGOROUS COURSES IN ALL LANGUAGES WORLDWIDE? I AM AN ABSOLUTE AMATEUR.
Bill tried his best to calm me down. “You can’t even be expected to find every typo in English,” he said, “and you speak English, Carrie.”
This didn’t have the effect he thought it would.
I’LL CHECK IT TEN MORE TIMES, I thundered. A HUNDRED! I’LL SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE PROOFREADING THIS MANUSCRIPT UNTIL I’M CERTAIN THERE ARE NO…MORE…MISTAKES.
But Carrie, a little voice said in my ear, you can never guarantee there will be no mistakes. And do you know why?
“Why?” I said, my voice a-quiver.
Because languages are made up. In English we can’t agree on the Oxford comma or the pronunciation of “-ough” or whether to spell it “flavor” or “flavour.” Languages are complex and inconsistent and you simply cannot please everyone when it comes to words. If an error does slip through, all you have to do is correct it. You are a human and your readers are humans. They will understand.
Well. Except for the French. Just make sure you get the French right, or l’Académie Française will send its agents after you in the nighttime and they will cudgel you with cabbages and baguettes, shouting, <<Utilisez l’accent circonflexe, s’il vous plaît!>> It will be humiliating, but you won’t want to cry lest the ruthless Académie agents call you a pleurnicheuse.
Somehow, this managed to reassure me when nothing else could.
Realistically, I told myself, not that many people will read my book. I mean, I hope a lot of people will read it, but compared to how many people there are in the world? Compared to how many people have existed on the planet throughout time? Only like half will end up reading it, tops. Of those, how many know enough Spanish or German or French or Italian or Mandarin to even know whether I’ve used the permanent or temporary form of “to be”? I mean, plenty of people from history were wholly illiterate, so they would have to listen to the audiobook anyway, and spelling wouldn’t matter at all in that case. So really, when you think about it, considering the entire history of the world and the significance my tiny book holds within it, is any of this really a big deal at all?
Yes.
In my small world, it is a huge deal. So I will continue to quadruple- and quintuple-check every phrase in the book like a neurotic little humbug until the formatter is forced to rip my laptop from my gnarled, cramped, carpal-tunnel-ridden hands so I can’t make any more changes.
At which point I will fold my hands in my lap and rock back and forth, muttering, “Estoy, estás, está, estamos, estáis, están…” until August 30th, when I’ll be free to fret about the next book, focusing all my neurotic energy on Shakespeare quotes and Prince trivia.
