For the grammar police with extra time on their hands....

Freelancer readers were the first to go! Staff readers have been dying out over the last two decades, as more centralisation increased and print turned into online media. The remaining journos are responsible for their own proofing, setting/design (including page design and illustrative inclusions incl photos) and most research/background checks. Once upon a time there were dedicated teams to help a journo achieve all this within the region and deadline limits; these days, neither regionality, nor task definition matter only the ever-shortened deadline. 

What’s worse is the move towards paying journos only if their work is published. You’d be amazed at how much online news is produced and published without paying the journo. Those of us who knew a better era mourn its passing.


The most recent in a long line of apostrophe annoyances is that autocorrect has started inserting apostrophes into plurals, at least on my iPhone and apparently on others also, judging from what I see in emails I receive that say they were sent from a phone.  Sheesh!


Educational publishing is no better. It's all about the bottom line these days. Sloppy work done quickly.

joanne said:

Freelancer readers were the first to go! Staff readers have been dying out over the last two decades, as more centralisation increased and print turned into online media. The remaining journos are responsible for their own proofing, setting/design (including page design and illustrative inclusions incl photos) and most research/background checks. Once upon a time there were dedicated teams to help a journo achieve all this within the region and deadline limits; these days, neither regionality, nor task definition matter only the ever-shortened deadline. 

What’s worse is the move towards paying journos only if their work is published. You’d be amazed at how much online news is produced and published without paying the journo. Those of us who knew a better era mourn its passing.



Sac, this is because the Apple dictionary (and most phone dictionaries) are databases compiled from most-used, that is by our standards they’re vastly corrupted. It’s like trying to push back the seas when we rail against these issues. LOL  However since most dictionaries these days are compiled on usage rather than on historical principles, we’re on the losing side.



joanne said:

It’s like trying to push back the seas when we rail against these issues. 

Was that Cnut — or C’nute?


the one that brings me great disgust and horror is "should of". Because of our speech, people actually think the phrase is "should of" and not "should have". It makes me want to cry. 


Dave S, I was taught to write Canute, but reckon he was probably Knud or Knut cheese

{My Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors tells me, on page 56, that he was King Canute or Cnut (note no apostrophe) of Norway, Denmark, and England.}



 Conandrob240, most subjunctive, transitive and conditional phrasings have people so confused these days they can’t hear and no longer think of the fine distinctions in what they write and say. Even if a regional accent sounds like “could of”, or “off of” the phrases should always be correctly written either in full (“could have”, “off”) or in the correct abbreviated form. 

But I can’t be the only one saying “may I?”, “shall we?”, “what if we were to..?” etc. I have to relax some of the time, and let others just express themselves... I just think of it all as another language  wink 


Since we’re discussing such matters, at least some of you might be interested in this delightful article on the history of typeface design. I’ll admit to learning some new information from it! 

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-history-of-the-world-in-five-typefaces-1.3250769



drummerboy said:

personally I don't get too upset about these usages. (its and it's not withstanding - but it's a tough rule to remember for people who are not very active writers. I write a lot and I often mess it up.)


Language is fluid and evolving and should not be stuck in the mud. And embracing new usages is certainly not "illiteracy".

Or, "notwithstanding"...  surprised 

It drives me crazy to see bad grammar, but it makes me particularly insane when I see something I wrote that contains grammatical errors.



marylago said:

It drives me crazy to see bad grammar, but it makes me particularly insane when I see something I wrote that contains grammatical errors.

Drat. I was really hoping to spot an error in that sentence.



DaveSchmidt said:



marylago said:

It drives me crazy to see bad grammar, but it makes me particularly insane when I see something I wrote that contains grammatical errors.

Drat. I was really hoping to spot an error in that sentence.

I did split an infinitive, right?


"I just think of it all as another language"

Nice strategy, joanne.  I'll try it (maybe as a way to drown my sorrow at the disappearance of the past perfect, even though its absence really fouls up chronology sometimes).




Remember the grammar discussion we had about 15 years ago that circled around spelling and where grammar/gramma/grammer came from, then devolved into ancient pumpkin recipes? oh oh

http://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/Gramma-Pie-L2261.html

There are traditional US versions, this one was quick and easy to find.



marylago said:

I did split an infinitive, right?

No, not even a split infinitive. Maybe a pronoun without an antecedent, but that's barely a crumb. I'm dying here.


Apparently avoiding split infinitives is an affectation invented by Victorians eager to impress the lower classes. There was an article in a British literary mag earlier this year that argued convincingly against this rule.


Dangling participles frustrate me, but no-one bothers anymore so I’m trying hard not to notice. And we’ve (Aussies) abandoned the hyphen in noone since the 80s, but spellcheckers haven’t caught up nor have a lot of other readers. 


Really, where would we be without "to boldly go"?



joanne said:

Apparently avoiding split infinitives is an affectation invented by Victorians eager to impress the lower classes. There was an article in a British literary mag earlier this year that argued convincingly against this rule.

How do you know that mag wasn't just trying to impress the literary class?



mjc said:

Really, where would we be without "to boldly go"?

Stuck at the intersection of Vauxhall and Springfield.


A few years old but still very good! 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/30/10-grammar-rules-you-can-forget

This includes the grammar we can learn from pop culture. 



joanne said:

This includes the grammar we can learn from pop culture. 

Just ask Herman of Herman's Hermits -- the former Peter No-one.

The example below reminded me of one of the ways a purportedly lost poem of Poe's was debunked when the experts had a crack at it. Poe was known to use "only" with precision, and the newly discovered poem misplaced it.

I Only Have Eyes for You – The Flamingos
Or, to the armchair grammarian, "I Have Eyes Only for You".


this is similar to the article on split infinitives and other rules that I remembered. But it’s older. 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/steven-pinker-10-grammar-rules-break


Flamingos’ quote is in the pop culture article. 

Australia’s dropped hyphen is in keeping with the dropped hyphen in coordinator and cooperate etc, which also follow the dropped umlaut or whatever it’s called in English that would be placed over the repeated O to indicate the pronunciation. Our national committee for such matters, SCOPE, in consultation with the Australian Government Printers’ style experts decided that the digital era resulted in the risk of RSI (carpal tunnel injuries) if we kept typing unnecessary characters. The MacQuarie Dictionary became our national dictionary and we adopted a more Canadian style of spelling. (We soon learnt to lower-case the Q in Macquarie, and we’re meant to drop the U in colour but most of us don’t)


From today's Star-Ledger:

<<

Oliver called the ad a “disgrace” that “pitted one group against the other.”

“I am abhorred at that ad,” she said.

>>

Can one be "abhorred at" something? I've never heard this usage.


Journo misheard “appalled”? *shrug* (trying to be generous)


If the grammar police were REALLY uptight they'd realize most of these things aren't even grammar errors, just typos!



unicorn33 said:

Not even freelancers?
joanne said:

unicorn33, they don’t employ proofreaders any more unless it’s for very expensive display ads. 

No proofreaders. Ever. Copy editors, yes. "Proofreading" I suppose is one of their functions, but it's much than that. Anyway, the Times got rid of the copy desk. Very sad. 


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