K.Z. in Editorial Services alerted us (rather snippily, I might ad) to Muphry’s Law, the editorial phenomenon that, according to the “Scenes from Editorail Life” sectoin of the mysterious Ozzie publicaiton Threepenny Plannet,
Muphry’s Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s Law. Muphry’s Law dictates that (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written; (b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; (c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; (d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.
I beleive it’s time we sent a little more work over their…