Wednesday, March 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The people behind The Nugget...
Pete Rathbun often wears
a T-shirt that reads:
“Letʼs eat grandma.”
“Letʼs eat, grandma.”
Commas save lives!
The man takes his com-
mas seriously — which is a
good thing for a proofreader.
Rathbun has spent the past
12 years at his desk at The
Nugget on Mondays, “pour-
ing red ink all over a small-
town newspaper.”
He says, “I just enjoy
being involved in putting
a little bit of final polish
on what’s already a quality
publication.”
Pete believes in standards
— even in an Internet world
where people aren’t even
aware of a difference between
“then” and “than.”
“Language is important,
and accuracy in language is
important,” he says. “It’s how
we communicate. Grammar
and punctuation make you
accurate.” He says he agrees
with the author of the best-
selling book “Eats, Shoots &
Leaves: The Zero Tolerance
Approach To Punctuation”
that “most all punctuation is
about pace and timing, which
promotes clarity.”
That said, he’s the first to
note “that even a proofreader
needs a proofreader.”
No matter how fine the
sieve, something’s bound to
slip through.
Nugget editor Jim
Cornelius finds the backstop
Rathbun provides invaluable.
“I’m a lousy proofreader,”
Cornelius said. “I tend to read
what ʻshould’ be on the page
rather than what actually is
on the page, so I tend to miss
punctuation errors. Bad gram-
mar jumps out, but I can be
a bit punctuation-blind. Pete
flags that stuff. I also rely on
him sometimes to turn an edi-
torial eye on something I’ve
written. He’s got a good ear
for tone. And he’s also a hoot
to work with.”
Rathbun’s particular punc-
tuation pet peeves are over-
capitalization and misplaced
apostrophes. Seeing Sister’s
instead of Sisters is sure to
elicit a menacing growl. He
also decries the over-use of
commas, “even though I think
there’s a place for an Oxford
comma here and there.”
Rathbun earned his inter-
est in written language the
Pete Rathbun
old-fashioned way: as a
reader.
“I’m a lifelong vora-
cious reader,” he said with
a chuckle. “And I had more
time to read after I dropped
out of high school.”
Language is important,
and accuracy in language
is important. It’s how we
communicate. Grammar
and punctuation make
you accurate.
— Pete Rathbun
He’s quick to note that
proofreading isn’t the same
thing as reading for content.
“My job is to find the mis-
takes,” he said. “Even though
I read literally every word
in the newspaper, don’t ask
what’s in there; I may not be
able to tell you.”
Rathbun is “an electri-
cian by trade” and has been
a wildland firefighter, a ranch
hand, and a sailor. Currently
PHOTO BY JIM CORNELIUS
Pete Rathbun — the man with the red pen.
and for the past 11 years he
has served as operations and
IT director for Sisters Folk
Festival. He’s also the sound
engineer for the band The
Anvil Blasters and handles
sound for several events in
Sisters.
He has also freelanced his
proofreading skills to sev-
eral local authors for their
books.
“I like to have diversity in
what I do, and the jobs that
I have are challenging,” he
said. “The work I do for The
Nugget takes three or four
hours a week, so it’s not like
I spend all my time filling up
paper with red ink. Probably,
if it was a larger paper, I
wouldn’t want to do it.”
In addition to his multi-
tude of gigs, Rathbun likes to
fly radio-controlled aircraft
and he enjoys hiking and
shooting.
“Occasionally, I get the
chance to go fishing,” he
says.
Fish don’t care about com-
mas, capitals and apostrophes.
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