Sometimes, one of four temp agencies with which I am listed will call me for a copyediting job at a big company, after my daytime work hours. Last night, I received a call for such a job. I left after my work at the satellite radio company to jump a train to a global communications firm in TriBeCa. Or was it SoHo? Anyway, after arriving at the global communications company, which turned out to be an Enormous Loft with Ceilings Up to There, decorated with white chi-chi chairs, white chi-chi curtains, chi-chi roofdeck facing my window, I was told to copyedit everything in British English. Fine. So while drinking my company-offered Nespresso coffee with actual Italian biscotti, I noticed this phenomenon:
Absense.
As in, Leave of Absense. Absense of copy. Absense of mind. Which appeared to be happening to me.
This can't be possible. Absense? I Googled "Absense." And found this. And that. Okay, academics are using this word? Or do they use the same web administrator?
AM I LOSING MY MIND?
Fortunately, I found enough word snafus to justify correcting "absense" to "absence." As in, what you get if you are absent in Britain or the United States. Or Canada.
2 comments:
Ab sense indeed!
Just checked OUP's Canadian Oxford Dictionary to be sure, and as far as Canada is officially concerned, there ain't no such animal (as my fifth grade English teacher used to say) as "absense". More like Pimm's induced nonsense lol.
Do you get to copyedit and eat biscotti out on the roofdeck?
Hah, hah, no, I sat at a desk, in front of a Mac *nearly on the roofdeck*!
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