Top proofreading spots: vocabulary. Stalagmites or stalactites? Servility or civility?

🔎 ‘Stalagmites hung from the ceiling, shimmering with alchemical light.’ ❌

One of my favourite types of #proofreading spot is when I’ve caught a wrong word choice.

‘Stalactites hung from the ceiling, shimmering with alchemical light.’ ✅

Tites hang down!

NOTE also the change from a G to a C: stalaCtites.

Another one I flagged recently was

‘The waiter greeted us with…

❌ servility’

It sounded like the author meant

✅ civility.

To be servile and to be civil are different things.

In another novel, I came across

‘The tension in his body…

❌ precipitated’

Whereas, the author was after something more like

✅ diffused.

As my whole adult life has been spent with my head in books, my vocabulary is wide. I notice where words are misused and save the author from miscommunication by catching these errors before the book is published.

Authors always seem relieved when things like this have been flagged.

It’s great that it’s so satisfying to do and so gratefully received. 😊

❓What aspects of your work do you find most satisfying?