Conan the Grammarian Strikes Back
This may become a regular rant for me...
A requirement for writing anything should be ownership of something like this and a pocket dictionary. Now admittedly, I may not be the best of all possible writers; but the general state of writing is reaching tragic proportions.
Today I was greeted early with a return e-mail at my office that read “Your welcome”. I see this way too often. Note to world: “your” is not an abbreviation for “you are”. The correct contraction is “you’re”. If you’re unsure of the correct usage, don’t try to abbreviate or contract. Either educate yourself or you’ve lost your abbreviation and contraction privileges.
And for all of you pooh-poohers out there who think this stuff doesn’t matter, you are doomed to end up as big an idiot as the author of this AP article. And, just in case some equally idiotic editor--who didn’t do his or her job the first time--eventually catches the mistake, here is the offending clause. “Williams, 67, recalled starring at a television...” She was doing WHAT at a television? And yes, spell check would not have picked this one up; which leads me to the question, did these people not proof the article before publishing it? My next question is “how can people of this aptitude keep jobs in this industry?” Oh yeah, never mind, we’re talking journalists here...carry on...
Proofreading is dead. Long live proofreading.
A requirement for writing anything should be ownership of something like this and a pocket dictionary. Now admittedly, I may not be the best of all possible writers; but the general state of writing is reaching tragic proportions.
Today I was greeted early with a return e-mail at my office that read “Your welcome”. I see this way too often. Note to world: “your” is not an abbreviation for “you are”. The correct contraction is “you’re”. If you’re unsure of the correct usage, don’t try to abbreviate or contract. Either educate yourself or you’ve lost your abbreviation and contraction privileges.
And for all of you pooh-poohers out there who think this stuff doesn’t matter, you are doomed to end up as big an idiot as the author of this AP article. And, just in case some equally idiotic editor--who didn’t do his or her job the first time--eventually catches the mistake, here is the offending clause. “Williams, 67, recalled starring at a television...” She was doing WHAT at a television? And yes, spell check would not have picked this one up; which leads me to the question, did these people not proof the article before publishing it? My next question is “how can people of this aptitude keep jobs in this industry?” Oh yeah, never mind, we’re talking journalists here...carry on...
Proofreading is dead. Long live proofreading.
posted by J at 1:50 PM
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