How do you call a person who corrects grammatical and stylistical mistakes in a text which is to be published? An editor?

We call that person ‘lektor’, and he/she is usually employed by a newspaper firm or a publishing company. They can also work on TV and usually have a bachelor’s in Serbian/Croatian. ‘Urednik’—also editor—is usually a journalist and he decides whhich articles are to be published, written etc.

I think that your ‘proofreader’, a person who finds and corrects mistakes in copies of printed text before the final copies are printed, is our ‘korektor’.

[quote author=Neo link=board=what;num=1091454939;start=0#0 date=08/02/04 at 09:55:38]An editor?

I don’t think it’s editor, though editor’s job might include proofreading.  Proofreader is the most straightforward word for this job description but reviewer and reader are not unheard of as well.

[quote author=Neo link=board=what;num=1091454939;start=0#0 date=08/02/04 at 09:55:38]How do you call a person who corrects grammatical and stylistical mistakes in a text which is to be published? An editor?

We call that person a ‘lektor’, and he/she is usually employed by a newspaper firm or a publishing company. They can also work on TV and usually have a bachelor’s in Serbian/Croatian. ‘Urednik’—also editor—is usually a journalist and he decides whhich articles are to be published, written etc.

I think that your ‘proofreader’, a person who finds and corrects mistakes in copies of printed text before the final copies are printed, is our ‘korektor’.

So what is the difference, then, between a ‘lektor’ and a ‘korektor’...?  I think I know, but I’d rather "hear" the differences from you.

-Tim

Korektor is concerned with the type(set) (where the lightface, boldface or italic type should be used; note that we have something called poludebela slova, which could be call halfbold in English), if there are lipographies, broken letters, where there is wrong font use, where there are errors in line spacing etc. He also checks indents, margins, paragraphing, although paragraphs are lektor’s job too. Usually a lektor is also a korektor, but that is not always the case. lektor’s job is lektura, a job which is called jezikovni pregled in Slovenian.

Why did I thought that editor equals lektor? Beacause a translator for the British series Cold Feet translated editor that way.

A Swedish "lektör" is stressed on the second syllable, and is the person who judges manuscripts to see if they are worth publishing.

The Swedish "lektor" [lé-] teaches at a high school or a university, and holds a PhD or equivalent.

Re: ‘halfbold’—in English, that’s probably referred to as demibold in the typesetting industry…

Many of the job requisites sound like the domain of the copy editor to me—also known as a ‘proofreader’ to some, although technically they perform different functions.

I found this explanation on a Google search:

Don’t expect typesetters or printers to proof your copy; that’s not their job. It’s up to you to engage a copy editor to correct the manuscript before it is typeset and a proofreader to ferret out errors in the typeset page proofs.

A copy editor not only corrects errors in spelling, syntax, punctuation, and so forth but also imposes uniformity of style, cleans up the occasional roughly written sentence, and eliminates repetition. A good copy editor knows the difference between who and whom, less and fewer, healthy and healthful, and anxious and eager.

Strictly speaking, proofreaders simply ensure that the typeset text matches exactly the manuscript. But proofreaders can also back up copy editors, changing "for awhile" to "for a while" and eliminating "hot" in "hot water heater."

Ideally, the copy editor and proofreader are different people; practically speaking, one good professional can do both jobs.

Source: Copy Editors: Who They Are and Why You Need One

Many people tend to think of the differences between proofreading and editing in these terms:

PROOFREADING

Most editors make a strong distinction between proofreading and editing. Proofreading is typically applied to checking SPELLING and grammar; ensuring correct SENTENCE STRUCTURE and word usage; and verifying calculations. It can also involve confirming facts, depending on the proofreader or the type of document being proofread.

EDITING

Editing involves improving WORD IMAGES and detail; ensuring the document has coherence and unity throughout; and revising or rewriting as needed to create crisp, polished copy. Many editors take the process a step further to STRUCTURAL EDITING, which involves the revision of the whole underlying theme or plot of the work. Structural editing is often performed by a publisher’s in-house staff and is typically associated with novels and book length manuscripts. It is seldom performed on online writing, so I won’t cover it here.

Source: OnlineOrganizing.com

Does this help?

-Tim

We also have editor in Portuguese, which designates the publisher, not the editor, of a magazine or newspaper.  The person who’s concerned with mistakes and formatting is called redator here.  The word leitor exists also, but it simply refers to a reader, from the verb ler - to read, and ler comes from Latin legere, to read.  

Lecturer is a common false cognate between English and Portuguese.  It looks like leitor, but it’s not, it means conferencista (from conferência) or palestrante (from palestra, which, in turn, has nothing to do with Italian palestra, which is a gym).  Boy, how confusing!

This reminds me of Spanish taller, which is Portuguese oficina and not talher.  Portuguese talher is Spanish cubierto.  Spanish oficina is Portuguese escritório and Spanish escritorio is Portuguese escrivaninha.  Go figure!

Brazilian dude