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| Stet | |
|---|---|
| Name | Stet |
| Caption | Proofreader's mark indicating retention |
| Type | Editorial mark |
| Introduced | Nineteenth century (modern proofreading) |
| Related | Hastily written manuscripts, mark deletion, proof correction |
Stet Stet is an editorial instruction used in manuscript preparation, proof correction, and typesetting to indicate that a previously marked deletion, change, or correction should be ignored and the original text retained. It functions as a corrective override in workflows spanning print and digital production, and appears across contexts involving authors, copy editors, proofreaders, publishers, printers, and designers.
The term derives from Latin via editorial practice and is aligned with traditions in typographic craft. Historical transmission links include printers in Venice, scholars associated with Aldus Manutius, and typographers connected to the Gutenberg Bible lineage. Influential figures and institutions such as William Caxton, Benjamin Franklin, John Baskerville, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and HarperCollins helped standardize proofing terminology. Related developments occurred alongside movements represented by Industrial Revolution, Arts and Crafts Movement, Modernism, and firms like Monotype Imaging and Linotype GmbH.
Stet serves as an instruction to retain original text despite intervening editorial marks; it operates within editorial chains involving editor-in-chiefs at outlets such as The New Yorker, The Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Book Review. Practitioners include copy editors at Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan Publishers, and freelance proofreaders working with software by Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Google, and Apple Inc.. The mark interacts with conventions codified in style guides from The Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press, and Council of Science Editors.
Origins trace to manual typesetting eras exemplified by workshops in Augsburg and Antwerp and processes used by printers such as William Caxton and publishers like John Murray (publisher). Nineteenth-century standardization parallels activities at Harper & Brothers, Macmillan Publishers (Macmillan) and pressrooms equipped with hot metal typesetting and presses from Friedrich Koenig and Richard March Hoe. Twentieth-century transitions to phototypesetting and digital typesetting involved firms like Linotype AG and Compugraphic; landmark texts from authors such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, George Orwell, and Ernest Hemingway underwent proof processes where retention marks were routine. Contemporary codification appears in manuals used by Oxford University Press and institutional archives of British Library and Library of Congress.
Traditional handwritten variants include abbreviated Latin commands and circled annotations used alongside deletion marks employed by proofreaders at newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and magazines like Time (magazine). Alternative notations are adopted in houses such as Random House, Bloomsbury Publishing, and academic presses like Princeton University Press and Harvard University Press. Related symbols appear in correspondence with printers from Cambridge University Press and typographic studios like Hoefler & Co. and Monotype. Cross-disciplinary parallels occur in legal drafting offices at firms like Baker McKenzie and review processes at institutions such as United Nations and European Commission.
Editors and proofreaders use the instruction to manage authorial intent in workflows at outlets like Nature (journal), Science (journal), The Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. Production stages where the instruction appears include manuscript submission systems at Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell, and bespoke platforms used by university presses. Design and typesetting teams in studios associated with Pentagram (design firm), IDEO, and in-house art departments at BBC and NPR also encounter retention directives. Archival and conservation practices at institutions like Smithsonian Institution and V&A Museum preserve proof sheets illustrating editorial marks.
In digital contexts, the function is implemented as "accept change" or "reject change" toggles in software such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Adobe Acrobat, LaTeX workflows mediated by editors at arXiv, and version control systems like Git used in collaborative drafting for organizations including Wikipedia and philanthropic foundations like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Content management systems employed by WordPress, Drupal, and Contentful incorporate editorial roles mirroring traditional commands. Institutional adoption is evident in publishing platforms at Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and collaborative research networks at ResearchGate.
Beyond publishing, the term appears metaphorically across journalism, literature, and popular culture with allusions in articles in The Guardian, columns in The New York Times, and essays in The Atlantic. Figures in media and arts—such as critics at The New Republic, broadcasters at BBC Radio 4, and commentators on NPR—use the term idiomatically to signal reversal or reaffirmation. References surface in stage directions in productions at Royal Shakespeare Company, in dramaturgy at National Theatre (UK), and in screenwriting rooms associated with studios like Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Netflix where line editing and script polish echo proof traditions.
Category:Editorial terminology