WARNING: UPTIGHT LANGUAGE NAZI RANT AHEAD (but not that bad)
The proper use of the English language is dying. Wait, don't leave yet- I'm not referring to some arcane crisis like the rampant misuse of gerunds, or hordes of dangling participles menacing the children. More specifically, I should probably say that proper writing of the English language is dying. No really, don't go, it gets better...
I'm no writing or grammar expert; I make my share of mistakes and sometimes my own rules. I'm sure I couldn't properly dissect a preposition for you, but I like to think I can construct a decent sentence while negotiating the intricacies of spelling and punctuation. All of the above seem to be vanishing skills, but they're a debate for another time and a billion other people's blogs. No, what I'm on about is the apparent loss of the simple art of proofreading.
What's been getting my linguistic goat lately is the increasing occurrence of blatant mistakes committed by people who should know better: professional journalists. They write for a living. It's what they're paid to do. And yet every day I see more stupid, obvious blunders, especially in online news. These are from the biggies: CNN, AP, Reuters, doesn't matter. It's obvious that too many deadlines and the pressure to get that important piece out about Barack Obama's cat have turned them all into once-through-the-spell-check automatons. People, here's a clue: spell check sucks! Plus, it won't fix a misspelled word that became another word- and let's not even get into it's/its/their/they're/your/you're/who's/whose- all of which scream out of the page at me like a banshee of ignorance, but they're not the worst of it.
No, I'll tell you what I'm REALLY sick of...you wanna know, don't you? It's when something is obviously missing, like, "Smith said the bear became angry after the campers ran out of lime jello," but nowhere else in the article has there been anything about Smith. Smith who? Apparently an important character introduced in a paragraph that got axed from the final draft. I see this kind of shit in probably 25% of the articles I read- or even more obvious, you get the same paragraph twice. Aren't there editors anymore? Look, you're the one who wanted a job writing essays the whole world will see, with your name on the top- take a minute and read the damn thing before you post it. Sheesh.
Okay, rant over- go about your business.
I'm no writing or grammar expert; I make my share of mistakes and sometimes my own rules. I'm sure I couldn't properly dissect a preposition for you, but I like to think I can construct a decent sentence while negotiating the intricacies of spelling and punctuation. All of the above seem to be vanishing skills, but they're a debate for another time and a billion other people's blogs. No, what I'm on about is the apparent loss of the simple art of proofreading.
What's been getting my linguistic goat lately is the increasing occurrence of blatant mistakes committed by people who should know better: professional journalists. They write for a living. It's what they're paid to do. And yet every day I see more stupid, obvious blunders, especially in online news. These are from the biggies: CNN, AP, Reuters, doesn't matter. It's obvious that too many deadlines and the pressure to get that important piece out about Barack Obama's cat have turned them all into once-through-the-spell-check automatons. People, here's a clue: spell check sucks! Plus, it won't fix a misspelled word that became another word- and let's not even get into it's/its/their/they're/your/you're/who's/whose- all of which scream out of the page at me like a banshee of ignorance, but they're not the worst of it.
No, I'll tell you what I'm REALLY sick of...you wanna know, don't you? It's when something is obviously missing, like, "Smith said the bear became angry after the campers ran out of lime jello," but nowhere else in the article has there been anything about Smith. Smith who? Apparently an important character introduced in a paragraph that got axed from the final draft. I see this kind of shit in probably 25% of the articles I read- or even more obvious, you get the same paragraph twice. Aren't there editors anymore? Look, you're the one who wanted a job writing essays the whole world will see, with your name on the top- take a minute and read the damn thing before you post it. Sheesh.
Okay, rant over- go about your business.
posted by Zonthar at
2:48 PM
1 Comments:
I'm dyslexic... does that count? Anyway... there is an award waiting for you at my place.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home