errata and/or corrigenda
Posted: Mon May 29, 2023 9:48 pm
I was asked today, what is the difference between "errata" and "corrigenda"? The young man who asked had done his homework -- he quoted at least a half dozen sources, from the OED to Merriam-Webster to Chicago to Wikipedia. To my dismay, only Wikipedia made a distinction, and they got it right.
In publishing circles, errata refers to recognition of glitches introduced during the publishing cycle; corrigenda identifies and corrects the author's goofs.
Since one of the misprints was found in the editor's column of the journal that I edit, and it was my own failure to adequately proofread my own typing, "corrigenda" was clearly the correct designation.
Both terms have a Latin origin. But why are they now considered to be the same, and why does the spell checker on this site try to tell me that "corrigenda" is not a real word?
In publishing circles, errata refers to recognition of glitches introduced during the publishing cycle; corrigenda identifies and corrects the author's goofs.
Since one of the misprints was found in the editor's column of the journal that I edit, and it was my own failure to adequately proofread my own typing, "corrigenda" was clearly the correct designation.
Both terms have a Latin origin. But why are they now considered to be the same, and why does the spell checker on this site try to tell me that "corrigenda" is not a real word?