The simple answer is: Yes! They should query everything, and never makes assumptions.
Obviously, you use your common sense. If a client or an author has spelt the prime minister’s name as: Rishi Sunak, you can trust that a reliable website like the BBC will probably get it right, if you don’t happen to know the spelling yourself.
But how about George Osborne? Or is it Osborn? And Ed Miliband? Or is it Milliband?
Our tutors will tell you have have proofread many documents that contain well-known names and have discovered that on checking, 75% of them were spelled incorrectly or were out of date with regard to say a person’s current job position.
It’s best to tell the client about it so they don’t make the same mistake again.
We know of some instances where the proofreader corrected the name in the copy, and didn’t mention it to the client.
And the client promptly changed it back again, to the wrong one!
See our proofreading courses