Copyedit 101

[RGMike]

http://bit.ly/qWVVY

This is what happens when we "elitists" are ridiculed and the Sarah Palins of the nation run the show.

I liked the one comment on the article:

Dyslexics of the world UNTIE!

Dyslexics Are Teople Poo!

[mshray]

http://bit.ly/qWVVY

This is what happens when we "elitists" are ridiculed and the Sarah Palins of the nation run the show.

I liked the one comment on the article:

Dyslexics of the world UNTIE!

Dyslexics Are Teople Poo!

Technically, that's a Spoonerism.  Totally different head.  Totally.

[RGMike]

Copyedit humor from a post on another forum:

"My grandfather had his semi-colon removed, and now he has to punctuate into a rubber bag."

[RGMike]

Happy National Punctuation Day!

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

And coincidentally, there's this post on SFGate, one of their outside blog things. It's atrociously written and in desperate need of copyediting/spellchecking -- read the comments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=48263&tsp=1

[Tinka Cat]

Happy National Punctuation Day!

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

And coincidentally, there's this post on SFGate, one of their outside blog things. It's atrociously written and in desperate need of copyediting/spellchecking -- read the comments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=48263&tsp=1

Thanks for posting this, Mike: we asked the blogger to fix his errors.  Turns out he was using Voice Recognition Software for this entry.  He should enunciate better; maybe he was eating breakfast at the time?

[RGMike]

Happy National Punctuation Day!

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

And coincidentally, there's this post on SFGate, one of their outside blog things. It's atrociously written and in desperate need of copyediting/spellchecking -- read the comments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=48263&tsp=1

Thanks for posting this, Mike: we asked the blogger to fix his errors. 

glad to hear it -- many of the outside and "guest blogger" thingys on sfgate are pretty awful, grammar-and-spelling-wise.

[Tinka Cat]

Happy National Punctuation Day!

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

And coincidentally, there's this post on SFGate, one of their outside blog things. It's atrociously written and in desperate need of copyediting/spellchecking -- read the comments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=48263&tsp=1

Thanks for posting this, Mike: we asked the blogger to fix his errors. 

glad to hear it -- many of the outside and "guest blogger" thingys on sfgate are pretty awful, grammar-and-spelling-wise.

Yeah, you get what you pay for.

[urth]

Happy National Punctuation Day!

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

And coincidentally, there's this post on SFGate, one of their outside blog things. It's atrociously written and in desperate need of copyediting/spellchecking -- read the comments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/detail?entry_id=48263&tsp=1

Thanks for posting this, Mike: we asked the blogger to fix his errors. 

glad to hear it -- many of the outside and "guest blogger" thingys on sfgate are pretty awful, grammar-and-spelling-wise.

Yeah, you get what you pay for.

We had similar issues at CNET with bloggers who were from the outside tech community, rather than on staff. No one was reading their stuff before it went live, and there were some pretty atrocious things that went up on the site.

[RGMike]

New Word of the Week: "metrotextual"

Apparently, metrotextuals are straight guys who text each other and sign their messages with x's and o's. Dude! Sweet!

[Gazoo]

New Word of the Week: "metrotextual"

Apparently, metrotextuals are straight guys who text each other and sign their messages with x's and o's. Dude! Sweet!

Great, just what I need.   

[urth]

Can I just vent a sec:

One of my big grammar pet peeves is the improper use of "it's" when the correct usage is "its." I fear that the distinction between the two is becoming excessively blurred due to large percentage of people who don't know the diff. I am seeing "it's" (the contraction of "it is") used in place of "its" (the possessive case of "it") many many places that should know the diff. I see this as another symptom of the dumbing down of our society as a whole, and it kinda bugs me. Sometimes a lot.

And to be clear, I'm not just talking about FB posts and other casual communications. I'm talking about things like this article, last graf:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/06/california.stolen.vw/index.html

This is fucking CNN, for crying out loud. It is supposedly a major news agency. It, if anything, should have higher standards, and know and practice this relatively simple point of grammar.

[/rant]

[Gazoo]

Can I just vent a sec:

One of my big grammar pet peeves is the improper use of "it's" when the correct usage is "its." I fear that the distinction between the two is becoming excessively blurred due to large percentage of people who don't know the diff. I am seeing "it's" (the contraction of "it is") used in place of "its" (the possessive case of "it") many many places that should know the diff. I see this as another symptom of the dumbing down of our society as a whole, and it kinda bugs me. Sometimes a lot.

And to be clear, I'm not just talking about FB posts and other casual communications. I'm talking about things like this article, last graf:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/06/california.stolen.vw/index.html

This is fucking CNN, for crying out loud. It is supposedly a major news agency. It, if anything, should have higher standards, and know and practice this relatively simple point of grammar.

[/rant]

Sadly, it's strongly likely that an editor merely perused that piece and no copy editor ever touched it.  Much of what I copyedit at Time.com is after-the-fact cleaning up, and my colleagues and I don't get to every single story posted.

Which isn't to excuse that glaring error so much as to note that increasing numbers of such errors will be a wave of the future as we continue to "streamline" online pubilshing procedures.

[Tinka Cat]

Can I just vent a sec:

One of my big grammar pet peeves is the improper use of "it's" when the correct usage is "its." I fear that the distinction between the two is becoming excessively blurred due to large percentage of people who don't know the diff. I am seeing "it's" (the contraction of "it is") used in place of "its" (the possessive case of "it") many many places that should know the diff. I see this as another symptom of the dumbing down of our society as a whole, and it kinda bugs me. Sometimes a lot.

And to be clear, I'm not just talking about FB posts and other casual communications. I'm talking about things like this article, last graf:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/06/california.stolen.vw/index.html

This is fucking CNN, for crying out loud. It is supposedly a major news agency. It, if anything, should have higher standards, and know and practice this relatively simple point of grammar.

[/rant]

Sadly, it's strongly likely that an editor merely perused that piece and no copy editor ever touched it.  Much of what I copyedit at Time.com is after-the-fact cleaning up, and my colleagues and I don't get to every single story posted.

Which isn't to excuse that glaring error so much as to note that increasing numbers of such errors will be a wave of the future as we continue to "streamline" online pubilshing procedures.

I make that mistake, too, even though I def know the diff.  I tend to use the apostrophe every single time, writing "it's" when I mean "its" -- it's never the opposite mistake.  Everyone "knows" the difference, but that possessive-without-an apostrophe throws things off. 

[urth]

I make that mistake, too, even though I def know the diff.  I tend to use the apostrophe every single time, writing "it's" when I mean "its" -- it's never the opposite mistake.  Everyone "knows" the difference, but that possessive-without-an apostrophe throws things off. 

That's by far the more common occurrence. And you've nailed the reason for it. People expect to have to include the apostrophe for any possessive.

Apologies for the rant, btw. Just really had to get that off my chest. I feel *much* better now.

[mshray]

this could go on the Sports Thread, but I think it is better here.

The confounding world of athlete tattoos

highlight: "Quarless may be God's gift to football, but not to punctuation. It lacks an apostrophe, to say nothing of humility."