Proofreader’s “leave that in”

Once upon a time, there was a hardworking proofreader named Pete who loved his job of finding and fixing errors in written works. He would pore over pages of text, highlighting mistakes left and right. However, one day, while going through a manuscript, he came across a sentence that made him pause.

The sentence read: “He thought the best way to make amends was to buy her a big, expensive ring – STET.”

Pete didn’t quite understand what “STET” meant, so he asked his colleague. She explained that “STET” was a proofreading term that meant “leave it in” and was used to indicate that a correction should be ignored and the original text should be retained.

From that day onward, Pete would come across various instances where “STET” was used, making him a master at identifying when corrections should be allowed to stay. And that’s how he became known as the best proofreader in town, always leaving the right things in when they needed to stay.