The Things They Queried

walking the fine line between helpful and rude

[thethingstheyqueried]

Q: ok to have pedophile joke in a reference book for teens? note: the editor was fine with it, even a little pissed to have to change it.

[thethingstheyqueried]

“…see chapter 4 for the down-low on [this term].”

query to ED: changing to lowdown; down-low usually means info that is kept under wraps, also slang for specific kind of sex.

query-not-query

[thethingstheyqueried]

query from CE to ED: use of word butthole ok? possibly rewrite to: “...imagine that gas seeping out from your bottom”?

lemme answer for ED: butthole ok. there are worse things.

other possibilities (not mine, really): imagine that gas blasting from your anus, asshole, rectum, bunghole, shithole, shitter; derriere, dumper, backdoor, lily of the valley, savory rosette, rosebud, drug mule...

in a book for kids with some degree of gross-out humor, what, you really want to say “your bottom” or “rear end” or “where your poop comes out”?

[thethingstheyqueried]

query: r u sure you want to compare Sherlock Holmes’s pipe to a pacifier in a children’s book?

[thethingstheyqueried]

So let’s say you encounter the following sentence in a book for teens:

“There’s all kinds of fun stuff on the internet. You can [redacted, redacted], you can flirt with men older than your father.”

And you bring it to the attention of the editor by saying, “Both [my boss] and I thought this inappropriate!” and she changes it, plus the margin text that plays off this “joke.” But in doing so says, “I defer to you, but I would have left all of it the way it was.”

[thethingstheyqueried]

query: "Are you sure you want to tell a kid to call up a hospital and ask if they have any extra petri dishes they can share, just so they can do your bacteria growing activity?" kid: Um hello-- hospital: You have reached blah blah blah Hospital. If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911. For directions, press 1. For-- kid: Um, can I speak to--? hospital: I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that. Please enter or speak the number again. Press 1 for-- Kid hangs up. Then remembers her parents during the rare phone calls to credit card company or bank or insurance, their crazed expressions and rude gestures and repeats of "Operator" "I want to speak to the operator" "I want a real person," so she presses 0 and repeats "operator" until she gets a real person. Who transfers her to someone else. Who transfers her to someone else. Then she's placed on hold. Then the call gets "dropped." Then she tries all over again and gets put on hold twice until she reaches someone who listens to her request for free petri dishes and responds: "You're fucking kidding me, right," and hangs up. The kid will remember this years later when she's wheeled into emergency and waits and waits for a nurse, a doctor. She sees hospital employees running around. More people cram into the waiting area. The pain escalates, perhaps it's whatever it is that brought her into ER, perhaps it's brought on by the anxiety of waiting and the very real smells of fear and pain...and blood...and worse. The reception phones ring and ring and ring.

[thethingstheyqueried]

query for ED: "The author says 'All lives matter' apropos of nothing on page ---. Do you have any thoughts on this? Leading question, because I definitely have thoughts on this."

[thethingstheyqueried]

query: "ok or fix? misogyny?" If you have to ask...