The Copyeditors

It had been a productive day. Not only had they stroked out a glaring, but previously undetected, redundancy from their lives, but they had also, in the early morning, spray-painted over the second l on the shop sign “Youthfull Flower Designs,” thereby ridding Toronto streets of one more error. Yesterday, from the grubby window of a westbound Dundas streetcar, Ben had spotted the superfluous letter and had jotted down the location. Today Will rattled the can and guided the nozzle into a curative curlicue. That’s how they divided tasks: one detecting, the other correcting. The perfect Copyediting duo, each with his own strength. Ben could find a misspelling in a haystack; Will could spot a comma splice a mile away.

Published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7. Purchase the book to read the full piece.