"every [(toute)] avoidable error"-in-"print" must be punished, with "prison or hard labor" if necessary

     "The need of truth is more sacred than any other need. . . .  One feels afraid to read when once one has realized the quantity and the monstrousness [(l’énormité)] of the material falsehoods shamelessly paraded, even in the books of the most reputable authors.  Thereafter one reads as though one were drinking from a contaminated well.
     "There are men who work eight hours a day and make the immense effort of reading in the evenings so as to acquire knowledge.  It is impossible for them to go and verify their sources in the big libraries.  They have to take the books on trust.  One has no right to give them spurious provender [(à manger du faux)].  What sense is there in pleading that authors act in good faith?  They don’t have to do physical labor for eight hours a day.  Society provides for their sustenance so that they may have the leisure and give themselves the trouble to avoid error. . . ."
     "A few straightforward measures of public salubrity would protect the population from offenses against the truth [(les atteintes à la vérité)].
     "The first would be to set up, with such protection in view, special courts enjoying the highest prestige, composed of judges specially selected and trained.  They would be responsible for publicly condemning any avoidable error [(toute erreur evitable)] , and would be able to sentence to prison or hard labor for repeated commission of the offense, aggravated by proven dishonesty of intention.
     ". . . .
     "Under this system, anybody, no matter who, discovering an avoidable error [(une erreur évitable)] in a printed text or radio broadcast, would be entitled to bring an action before these courts."

     Simone Weil, The need for roots:  prelude to a declaration of duties toward mankind, trans. Arthur Wills (New York:  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1952), 37-39 (Part one, Truth).  French from L’enracinement:  prelude à une declaration des devoirs enverse l’être humain, Collection Espoir (Paris:  Gallimard, 1949), 38-40.
     Who, then, should be prosecuted for this eminently avoidable error?  The translator?  Or someone else further on down the chain?  "All the more reason why it is disgraceful to tolerate the existence of newspapers on which, as everybody knows, not one of the collaborators would be able to stop [(y demeurer, to remain!)], unless he were prepared from time to time to tamper knowingly with the truth" (38).
     Cf. Geoffrey Hill on the metaphysical significance of inaccuracy.