Spectator Books: the right way to write with Benjamin Dreyer

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4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 26 June 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week’s Spectator Books podcast Sam's guest is Benjamin Dreyer — whose name is pronounced, as Sam discovers live on air, 'Dryer' rather than 'Drayer'. That seems an apt way to be introduced to a man who, as Random House US’s Copy Chief, makes his living correcting errors. His new book Dreyer’s English is a compendium of useful tricks of the trade, sharp opinions and authoritative rulings on everything to do with language and style. They talk transatlantic language differences, angry pedants, and punctuation nitty-gritty, with special reference to Steven Pinker, the New Yorker and Guns N’ Roses.

Spectator Books is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes of Spectator Books here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Spectator Radio, the Spectator's curated podcast collection.
0:10.3	Hello and welcome to the Spectator's books podcast.
0:13.2	I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.
0:15.5	This week, my guest is Benjamin Dreher, who is the copy chief.
0:19.2	If I may, dryer.
0:20.7	Dyer. He is a man who corrects things. Here we go. Benjamin Dreher, who is the copy chief. If I may, Dreyer. Dreyer.
0:21.9	He is a man who corrects things.
0:23.4	Here we go.
0:24.3	Benjamin Dreyer.
0:25.3	I apologize, Benjamin.
0:27.2	Benjamin Dreyer is the copy chief at Random House, the American Publishing Company,
0:31.8	and he is the author of a new book called Not Dreya's English, but Dryers English, an utterly correct
0:39.0	guide to clarity and style, to which we can now add pronunciation. Benjamin, what's your job?
0:45.7	You're a copy chief, a copy editor. What's the difference between that, say, an editor or a
0:50.0	proofreader? Well, as a copy chief, I supervise a fairly large department of people called
0:57.3	production editors, and production editors are the people who hire copy editors and proofreaders.
1:02.4	Copy editors are the people who, after an author has spent, who knows how many years writing a
1:08.9	manuscript and then given it to their editor,
1:12.1	and the editor and the author have gone back and forth and back and forth on it for who knows
1:15.7	how many drafts, and ultimately decided that the book is everything it is supposed to be insofar
1:20.8	as pace and plotline and characterization and all those very big ticket items that they need to
1:27.2	attend to. It's then given over to my department that they need to attend to.
	...

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