Copy editing a problem in Germany, too
Posted July 24th, 2008 at 11:15 AM by Jon HamThe decline and fall of good copy editing in American journalism has been remarked upon extensively. Apparently, though, the problem is international. On the Web site of the German magazine Der Spiegel (it’s Deutschland’s equivalent of TIME) is this notice:
1:42 p.m.: SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that Obama has cancelled a planned short visit to the Rammstein and Landstuhl US military bases in the southwest German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The air base in question (where I was stationed for two years) is Ramstein Air Base, not Rammstein Air Base, which gets its name from the nearby town of Ramstein, not Rammstein. As far as I can tell, there is no Rammstein in Germany.
I’m thinking this must be a glitch in the translation because misspelling Ramstein would be like TIME spelling it Anndrews Air Force Base. Or maybe Der Spiegel has outsourced their copy desk duties to India.
July 24th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Maybe they’re thinking of the group Rammstein.
July 24th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
I was going to post the exact same thing, Steve.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I didn’t even know there WAS a group called Rammstein. Should have googled them. I see that their name has a connection to the Air Force Base in a grotesque sort of way:
I guess the Spiegel copy editor is a fan of Tanz Metall.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
That’s what we of the younger generation are here for
July 25th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Apparently they didn’t feel like posting the reason… Obama had said he wanted to go to Ramstein to visit wounded servicemen in the hospital there. The Department of Defense turned him down yesterday, saying they could not allow this while he’s on the political part of his trip. He did visit wounded soldiers in Iraq, but he was part of a Congressional delegation at that time, so that was acceptable.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am
[...] a related note, her dad was the only one to catch a rather embarrassing error by Der Spiegel; the copy editor confused Ramstein [...]
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