Majime nodded, beaming. “Thanks to Nishioka, all my struggles and tactics worked out perfectly.”
Then did he also know all about the concealed love letter? Cautiously she asked, “Did you look at the note on the last page?”
“It’s embarrassing to admit.” He scratched his cheek awkwardly. “Sometimes I would get discouraged and wonder if The Great Passage was ever really going to launch. At times like that, I’d take Nishioka up on his offer and e-mail him. He always was kind enough to take me out for a drink.”
“Oh, I see . . .” The twisted closeness between the two middle-aged men boggled her mind. Wearing a strained smile, Kishibe turned tail and fled. So for Majime, Nishioka’s e-mail address on the “top-secret” file led to an invitation to go drinking, and for anyone else it would lead to a revelation of the love letter’s existence.
Having all the manuscripts finished didn’t mean the dictionary was finished. All the entries had to be polished and trimmed as much as possible. With over two hundred thousand entry words, space was at a premium.
All usage examples had to be checked and double-checked. A usage example included a quotation showing a specific instance of the word in use along with the source. For modern words, rather than offer a quotation, they often invented illustrative sentences of their own. Every usage example had to be checked to make sure the sentence conveyed the appropriate meaning and any quotation was accurate. Over twenty college students were hired as part-time workers to do the job. Seated at the desks Kishibe and Majime had worked so hard to rearrange, they thumbed through reference works. As summer vacation came along, the number of student workers doubled.
When the checking was finished, the entire editorial staff worked on inserting instructions for font sizes, phonetic renderings, and the like. Everything had to be in accordance with the guidelines and conform to a single standard. If the font changed for no apparent reason, or if different symbols were used depending on the entry, users would be confused.
Then, finally, the dictionary pages would be ready to send to the printer. They began with words starting with the first kana in the syllabary and proceeded in order.
The submitted pages came back in the form of galley proofs. The editorial staff and proofreaders went over these with a fine-tooth comb, looking for typographical errors as well as interpretation issues, places lacking in clarity, and a host of other possible mishaps. The company brought in a huge number of freelance proofreaders in addition to in-house ones.
When everyone was satisfied that all was well, the galleys were returned to the printer’s marked in red, and a second set of proofs was made. For a dictionary the size of The Great Passage, a minimum of five proofs was standard. Larger dictionaries often required as many as ten.
For the first two sets of proofs, they confined themselves to checking content and format; that was really all they could do, since some texts weren’t finished and the entries were not in perfect order. With the third proofs, finally all the entries were put in order following the kana syllabary. Now, for the first time, they were able to survey the entire dictionary, and could look for redundancies and omissions, and decide where to insert illustrations.
On the fourth proofs, page layouts were determined and the placement of illustrations was tweaked. At this point, changes affecting the total number of pages were to be avoided. Major edits to the sentences or entry words would change the number of pages, and that in turn would push up the price of the dictionary. But sometimes a new entry word needed to be added at the last minute. Such things happened if a new American president took office, for example, or if a municipal merger took place. On the chance that such a thing would happen, a bit of white space had to be left until the very end.
Naturally, work on the galley proofs also began at the front of the syllabary. “That’s why most dictionaries skimp on words toward the end of the syllabary,” said Majime with a grin. “By the time they get to words starting with ra and wa, the publication date is near, and it’s a battle for time. Words get left out just because there isn’t enough help to do the checking or space to squeeze in one more on the page.”
“Is that going to happen with The Great Passage, too?” asked Kishibe. What a shame that would be, she thought, after the years of labor the staff had put in.
“Well, after all,” said Professor Matsumoto from the side, “we’ve been working on it for thirteen years now. We’ll make sure we get every last word in, right down to the bitter end.”
“There’s an easy way to tell if you’re slighting words at the end of the dictionary,” said Majime. He lugged over a number of medium-sized dictionaries and lined them up in front of Kishibe, unopened. “Dictionaries have black markers called thumb indexes, like these, cut into the pages to locate entries starting at a particular section. As you can see, a preponderance of Japanese words start with sounds from the first three columns of the kana syllabary: those headed by a, ka, and sa.”
Kishibe compared the various dictionaries. In each one, words from those first three columns took up more than half the pages.
“Whereas words from the last three columns, those headed by ya, ra, and wa, take up very little space. That’s because few wago begin with those sounds.”
“Wago?”
“Native Japanese words, as opposed to kango”—Chinese loanwords—“and gairaigo,” (words borrowed from foreign countries other than China). “Anyway, when you line up words in order, you see most of them are concentrated at the beginning: words starting with a-i-u-e-o, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, sa-shi-su-se-so. So if the lead word on the middle page of a dictionary starts with su or se, you know that the words chosen are evenly distributed throughout the syllabary.”
“It’s interesting that the center of the dictionary comes so far at the front of the syllabary.” Kishibe folded her arms and looked at the black thumb indexes.
“Well,” said Professor Matsumoto, “it’s helpful to know that words aren’t scattered evenly through the syllabary.” He traced a thumb index fondly with a finger. “That’s why, if you want to win at the word game shiritori, you need to pick words that end with ra or wa or some other kana from the end of the syllabary.” He smiled. “The trouble is, it’s hard to come up with such words on the spur of the moment.”
“Even for you?” she asked in surprise.
“The ocean of words is wide and deep.” He laughed. “I still have a long way to go before I can be like an ama, someone who dives down and fetches pearls.”