>I have also taught more than my fair share of freshman composition classes, <
For which you have my deepest sympathies.
Chris, in theory (and who was it said: in theory, theory and reality are the same; in reality they're not) there's only one real difference between how university & scienfitic presses, on one hand, and trade presses, on the other, work: the concept of peer review. It's just not done in regular publishing.
In the good old days, even run-of-the-mill consumer book publishers went through that same series of in-house and author editing. And, as you point out, it's very rare that an error creeps in between the original proofs and the final galleys. So the author has had ample opportunity to catch and correct them.
Thus, if they appear in the final work, it is certainly not the publisher's fault.
Sometimes the process results in turning the author off, and he/she doesn't edit it properly as a result. With my last book, for instance, the equivalent of a line editor was a freelancer whose only credientials were having a classics education. There wasn't a paragraph that didn't have comments asking for clarification or definitions of basic terms and conditions. Essentially, these notations reflected
her unfamiliarity with the subject. Fortunately, instead of throwing up my hands in frustration I called my editor, who told me to ignore most of those comments. "You and I decide what goes in," she said, "so just make any real corrections, and don't worry about the rest."
But I could easily see somebody taking the attitude, "this is ridiculous. I'm not wading through all this crap." And, because of that, real errors go undetected.
As an aside: I am probably the second worst speller in the world. When I first went to work at McGraw Hill, I worried about that. My then boss, however, told me: "That's what we have copy editors for." One of the problems is that most publishers, nowdays, see copy editors as an unnecessary expense. Which, far as I'm concerned, just puts the burdon back on the author---where it belongs.
>To boil it down radically: Ed's confusing the issue,.......<
I don't think he's confusing the issue. It's a matter of basic assumptions. You know how many women in this country think they know all about sex, just because they're women? Ed is the same way about food arts. His basic assumption is that anyone who works in the food industry knows all about food, just because of their job. And any writer can't possibly compete with that knowledge and skill base. Notice, for instance, that in this latest of his "experiences" he is prepared to blame a proofreader rather than the authors. That's typical of how he reacts anytime a writer disagrees with any of his cherished opinions.
>If I had one thing to say above all else about the reviews here, it's that you've got the very unusual situation that everyone involved is very knowledgeable about the subject, <
Thank you for noticing. We've worked very hard to assemble that kind of staff. But the thing to keep in mind is that about half of them are not now, nor ever have been, professionals in the food industries. On the other hand, we also have some professionals who are not only knowlegeable specialists, they are recognized as tops in their respective fields.