Friday, July 25, 2008

If you don't like the edit-- write "stet"

from www.wordsmith.org

stet (stet) verb tr., intr. Let it stand. [From Latin stet (let it stand), from stare (to stand). Ultimately from Indo-European root sta- (to stand) that is also the source of stay, stage, stable, instant, establish, static, and system.]

Stet is used as a direction on a printer's proof or manuscript to indicate that the alterations be undone and the original word or passage be restored.

"I realize that I have silted myself into the debate as a typographical neoconservative and a novitiate Barzunite, having insulted both pop culture and the West, and implied an allegiance to elegance and the author. I don't really want to mean this. Nevertheless, pls stet."
--Janet Burroway; Language, Culture, And the Cop (sic) Editor; The Chronicle of Higher Education (Washington, DC); Nov 7, 1997.

"The charges later were dismissed in Baltimore City and stetted in Howard County."
-- Peter Geier; 'Patricide' Author Sues Sheppard Pratt; The Daily Record (Baltimore, Maryland); Feb 5, 2003.

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