Live and Let Di

What exactly does this complement?

Someone paid someone to confuse "complementary" with "complimentary" in this e-mail promoting these Olay products.

Di

Say it ain't so, N&O!

Everyone knows I LOVE my morning paper. But today, as I was walking up the driveway, looking at the front page, I noticed a severe case of unnecessary quotation marks! The biggest headline above the fold read:

Obama: Stimulus key to avert 'catastrophe'

In my humble, grammar geek opinion, by starting the headline with Obama followed by a colon, they have already indicated that they are quoting or paraphrasing something Obama said. Putting "catastrophe" in quotation marks is redundant and unnecessary.

The REALLY interesting thing is that I think they caught it too...after the paper went to press. I was looking at the News & Observer on-line so that I could link to the actual article. I was nicely told by an N&O editor that I was not welcome to scan an article and post it on my blog. That's cool. I have no problem with that. When I found the article, the headline had changed to:

Obama defends stimulus plan

You be the judge...grammar gaffe or were they just trying to check to make sure I am still reading the paper every day?

Di

In the job summary?

This was part of an advertisement for a technical writer for a US based, international company.

Here's the deal. This company really has three choices, as I see it.

1. Go with the politically correct "his/her."

2. Fly in the face of political correctness and go to the grammatically correct (well, at least 30 or 40 years ago) "his," giving your audience credit that they will understand that you are using it in the universal sense. Nah, nobody will go for that.

3. Wimp out and avoid the whole his/her thing by changing it to "well rounded professionals," but that wouldn't really work because there is only one position available.

BUT DON'T PUT A NOUN AND A VERB THAT DON'T AGREE IN NUMBER IN THE FIRST LINE OF A JOB SUMMARY FOR A TECHNICAL WRITER!

Di

What is wrong with this picture?

I know I'm being a bit of a grammar bitch lately, but come on. The largest words on the box and you couldn't run spell-check on them? This is for real...not something I found on the internet. This is at the Cantina as we speak. See the little fingers in the lower right hand corner? Those belong to my friend Marcy.

No they can't...have such utter disregard for the English language. No they can't!

Di

 

Dooce Busted!

A grammatical error on Dooce. My day is officially made.

Anyone care to identify it?

But, Heather, you can relax. You know I'm not going to stop reading and that I sit in awe of you. I'm sure with your kazillions of readers and $40K a month, you would freak out if I stopped reading. I will be first in line to buy your book, It Sucked and Then I Cried, because I admire your willingness to be candid about pregnancy, motherhood and post-partum depression. Parenting books typically make Moms feel inferior. Oh, if I only had the discipline of Dr. Rosemont. Oh, if I could only do the Ferber method without standing outside my kid's room in tears. We need more Moms telling us that in our inferiority, we might just be...normal?

Di

P.S. Thanks go out to JoAnn for noticing my busted link to Dooce. How ironic! I get busted by JoAnn for a broken link in the post I wrote about busting Dooce for a grammatical error!

I Can Totally Conflate

I find it so exciting when I run across a word that is completely new to me. First I smugly assume that the writer just misspelled a word and it isn't a word at all. This is especially true when it's found in a letter to the editor. Later I might consider that it's really a word, but the writer used it wrong. And sometimes it's just a perfect real world that is used in the perfect context and I desperately want to add it to my vocabulary despite the fact that no one I was talking to or writing for would understand it!

In today's paper, a writer of a letter to the editor writes, "...as a Jew, I am deply disturbed that anyone should attempt to defend the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza..." In closing, she writes, "I refuse to conflate Judaism with Israel." I kept the paper folded open to that page until I got around to looking up the word, finding the following definition:

Conflate - verb (trans.)
to combine (two or more texts, ideas, etc.) into one

Now I can't stop thinking of things that I would like to or cannot conflate.

I wish we could conflate customer service and customer satisfaction.
I cannot conflate health insurance with health and financial security.
It's a shame that many people cannot conflate school with education.

What about you? Any thoughts?

Di

Come and Set a Spell

I really AM going to get to those topics I promised, but yesterday was REALLY busy with final editing stuff.

Speaking of editing. Are you a language snob like I am? Do you think you need to be taken down a notch? Well, here's the quiz for you...

25 MOST COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS

And just for the record for my friends who think I think I'm perfect with all that stuff...I got four wrong. I'll tell you mine if you will tell me yours!

Di

Grammar Karma

It is so strange that I read a grammar-related blog Watch Yer Language, which is a part of the Billings Gazette. I think Billings is in Montana and I have no idea where I got the idea to read this blog.

I'm not a huge link-follower, but when I read this post, I simply could not resist the lure of a link that promised a special holiday grammar quiz wrapped up just for you. I know, I am such a grammar geek that I am more excited about a holiday grammar quiz than I am about most of the rest of the holiday festivities.

But...how weird is this? The link took me to my hometown paper, the News & Observer! The same newspaper that is kind enough to let me blog weekly about whatever I want under the rather broad umbrella of Mom2Mom (if you click this link, you will see this week's Saturday post even though it's only Friday.) I think Santa gave the Triangle a gift of reading Di's weekly meanderings a day early...either that or Sarah, our editor, wanted to take a day off.

Come on...take the quiz. It's not really hard. You know you want to. And it has cute graphics! I scored 50 points out of a possible 50. 100%...surprised?

Di

Language, Popcorn and the Military

The English language has some really confusing spellings and pronunciations which must drive non-native speakers crazy. But they are OUR spellings and pronunciations and I think we should learn them and live with them. I still have to look up "nauseous" every time I use it because how the hell do you get "nauseous" from "nausea?" I mean, where did the "a" go? Who brought in the "o?"

I have a friend, let's call her "Darcy," who runs a church youth group. The kids in the group decided that this year they would send Christmas postcards to soldiers who are serving abroad during the holidays. Darcy began researching how to go about this and eventually wound up on the phone with a woman from the Veterans' Administration, who suggested that they put all of their postcards in one envelope and send it to an officer who would distribute the postcards. She promised to send Darcy an e-mail with the contact information and this is what she sent:

...there are about XXX in the barracks of XXX's Brigade, I am not sure how many you were planning on sending, but any amount is appreciated.  Here is the address:
 
XXX Brigade
Attn: Lieutenant Kernel Jones

Darcy was aghast. She was pretty certain that the person to whom she was sending this was not a Lieutenant whose first name happened to be Kernel. So she immediately e-mailed me to give her a reality check:

I am forwarding this note b/c I want you to verify something for me.  Notice the second line of the address.  Is this a joke as to how "kernel" is spelled??  The person who sent me this note has used that spelling more than once.  Did the Army change the spelling b/c so many people were too illiterate to remember how to spell "colonel".  If you can shed some light on this I would greatly appreciate it!

We have subsequently conferred with my favorite Grammar Geek as well as my friend Kim's son who is in the Army and determined that the spelling of Colonel has not been changed. And as further proof, I present the following:

Are you about to question a man who is capable of murder with such implements as a rope, a revolver and a candlestick in just about any room in your house?

Our beloved Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake from M*A*S*H is certainly not about to allow the popcornization of his hard-earned rank. Well, as hard-earned as something that you can do while wearing a hat sporting fishing lures, that is.

And what about his successor, Colonel Sherman Potter? I still remember crying when Lt. Col. Blake died. Who could possibly replace him? Colonel Potter was the type of commanding officer who would occasionally look the other way when Hawkeye was up to his shenanigans, but would surely not tolerate the misspelling of his rank.

And finally, the smiling face, the icon of joy, the beacon of hope during the Depression who momentarily took us with her to the "sunny beach of peppermint bay"...Shirley Temple. There's no unpopped pocorn on that Good Ship Lollipop.

And with that, I rest my case (with apologies to any of our fighting soldiers whose first names might actually be Kernel).

Di

The Internet Needs Me...or at least my 12-YO

Our morning routine is me reading the News & Observer and Rory cruising the sports sites on line. Being my son, he notices typos and grammatical errors and gleefully points them out to me. This morning he found something that said (I'm paraphrasing except for the bold part), "The Nittany Lions are going to the Rose Bowl for the just the third time."

Kudos to Rory for finding it and being appalled at it which means there is a future for grammar and accuracy with the next generation.

After he left, I couldn't find the exact link, so I Googled, "the just the third time" in quotation marks so all I would get is those sites where that exact phrase appears. 87 sites came up. It's not just careless bloggers (of which I count myself occasionally) either. The list includes:

mlb.com
musiccitybowl.com
cbc.ca (Canada)
espn.com
clevelandbrowns.com
sportsillustrated.cnn.com
sportingnews.com

If just two or three of these places hired me, sent me their articles prior to publication and paid me a pittance, we could eradicate these kinds of errors and maybe give our language the respect it deserves.

Do you think we are ready to just give up on language in exchange for speed?

Di