Stet: let it stand
Stet is the one proofreader’s mark that undoes another. It tells the printer to ignore a correction and keep the words as they were.
The word
Stet is Latin. It comes from stare, to stand, in the form that means “let it stand”, and English printers took it over unchanged as a direction on a proof.1 By 1888 Charles Jacobi’s Printers’ Vocabulary could define it in a line: it cancels any correction marked in copy or proof, and it is shown by dots underneath.2
How the mark is made
An edit is marked: here small is struck out and bloated written in.
Second thoughts. A row of dots goes under the words to keep.1
Stet goes in the margin beside the line, often ringed, as editors ring any note meant for the printer rather than for the page.3
Where you’ll meet it
On proofs, wherever an author or editor changes their mind: it is one of the abbreviations in the Chicago Manual of Style’s chart of proofreaders’ marks, and its own style quiz sums it up as “don’t make those edits”.4 The courts borrowed it too. In Maryland a prosecutor can ask for a charge to be marked stet, which sets the trial aside indefinitely; either side can bring it back within a year, and after that only for good cause.5
Why it names the suite
Stetley takes its name from the mark. Software tends to edit your work for you: a redesign you didn’t ask for, a feature in the way, a page that takes longer to open every year. Stetley is the margin note that says no. Your work stays as you made it, and the apps stay out of its way.
An office suite that lets your work stand out. Office apps that open fast. No bloat.
A short history of proofreading, and its marks · Back to Stetley