The computer programmer called a link to download a patch for some software the Software Up Date. Twice.
This is my new favorite. It's holding up everything because he went to lunch and I refuse to release something that makes it look like no one has graduated from the fifth grade.
Anyone else?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Ooh, I've got some good ones from the book I'm (still) editing:
quote:The problems has been raised by members of the Department advisory council, but by faculty members, prominent alumni, various chairs and increasingly by editors of major publications who do not see the BYU graduates as being prepared or able to function well in an environment outside of BYU or the state of Utah.
This epitomizes his writing style: long lists, redundant word pairs, misused words, misplaced modifiers, and non-parallelism. And this is from a man who was a professor of journalism for two decades. I want to cry.
[ January 14, 2004, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
*pat pat*
My boss, purportedly a writer, uses the word "flustrated" in e-mails.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
By far the most common one I see is the run-on sentence, people don't know how to stop one sentence and start another.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Jon Boy, what does the first sentence mean? Who exactly raised the question?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Advice for robots! An editor should know better! There is no curse in Elvish, Entish or the tongues of Men for this treachery.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I just got back from a long, boring meeting in which the participants were going over a document one of them had written, making sure everybody was clear on everything it contained. I was just there to answer technical questions about software, in case they had any. The thing read like it had been written by a mid level English as a second language student--all sorts of problems with subject verb agreement, incorrect use of articles in some instances and complete failure to use them in others, truly bizarre sentence structure, and a very creative, if inconsistent, use of both commas and semi-colons. Holy carp! If I'd been the author of that document I'd have been incredibly embarassed. No one mentioned it. I'm not sure if it was to save the author embarassment, or because none of them were capable of spotting the mistakes.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Jon Boy, what does the first sentence mean? Who exactly raised the question?
*sobs*
I don't know. There must be a word missing, because the conjunction makes absolutely no sense. I think he must mean and. I know I've seen other sentences where he used but instead of and.
Is there an emoticon for pulling out one's own hair?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Well obviously I was just illustrating my point, you don't think I'd actually make that kind of mistake?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Oh, whew! I was worried about you for a second.
Posted by St. Yogi (Member # 5974) on :
quote: Jon Boy, what does the first sentence mean?
First sentence?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
It is comforting to know that you were worried about me, Jon Boy. Heck, we're almost related.
Did you know that I found another colleague-in-law recently? She used to work at IS as an editor, did Inscape while I did Leading Edge, and worked at Nu Skin as a writer in another department! Now she's in the same Master's program as me.
Wierd.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote:worked at Nu Skin as a writer...
ha ha ha. What state do you live in again?
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Oo-tah. Where else?
Why? What did I do?
[ January 14, 2004, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
You know what else I love? People who spell weird as wierd.
What's her name? I wonder if I've heard of her.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
That will be one of my few weaknesses, thank you very much.
Edit: Her name is Krista Sidwell. That's her married name. I don't know her maiden name. I worked with her on several projects at Nu Skin, but somehow I barely remember her. Seems like our stints at IS overlapped a little as well, although I just can't dig up a really solid memory of her there.
[ January 14, 2004, 04:03 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
The name Krista doesn't ring a bell. I don't really know that many of my IS predecessors, unfortunately.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I have favourite spelling mistakes. Especially on things that are supposed to be intelligent. Ei. letters from universities.
"Gaurdian" is one of my favourites because it used to be one of my nemises.
"Solger" instead of Soldier is another one I could never spell.
I have fond memories of bad spelling.
Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
I love students who try to sound smarter by using the thesaurus.
One of them started with, “another source of error due to disturbances in the air” and somehow got to “altercations in the air.” I asked him who he got into the fight with.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Ei.
Eh?
Posted by jack (Member # 2083) on :
quote: The problems has been raised by members of the Department advisory council, but by faculty members, prominent alumni, various chairs and increasingly by editors of major publications who do not see the BYU graduates as being prepared or able to function well in an environment outside of BYU or the state of Utah.
Personally, the only way this sentence makes any sense to me is to change this way. . .
The problems have been raised not by members of the Department advisory council, but by faculty members, prominent alumni, various chairs, and increasingly, by editors of major publications who do not see the BYU graduates as being prepared or able to function well in an environment outside of BYU or, the state of Utah.
But then again, I use way too many commas.
[ January 14, 2004, 04:41 PM: Message edited by: jack ]
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
So, did he drop a not or did he write a completely crappy sentence.
I like the drop-a-not idea (I do that all the time), but if Jon Boy guesses wrong, that could change the meaning of the entire sentence.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
quote:My boss, purportedly a writer, uses the word "flustrated" in e-mails.
"Flustrated" is perfectly fine! Though you may not find it in a dictionary, it's a really nice combination of "frustrated" and "flustered"; the meaning is quite clear from its components (and from context, no doubt). As long as it's used with the knowledge that it's not a "real" word, I've got no problem with it. Another one along these lines is "twidgeting", which is one of my favorite pastimes.
quote:You know what else I love? People who spell weird as wierd.
Damn, you beat me to it. I know poor spelling isn't quite the same as poor grammar (a subcatagory, perhaps?), but interchanging vowels is one of the things that is most glaring to my eye. Perhaps that's because my name is so often misspelled as "Micheal", despite its status as one of the most common names among English-speaking males. (Similarly misspelled on occasion is the name of a particular small Middle Eastern country that's been in the press quite a bit lately (and not so lately).)
quote:The problems has been raised by members of the Department advisory council, but by faculty members, ...
I think what the journalism professor may have been going for was something like "The problems ha[ve] been raised not only by members of the Department advisory council, but by faculty members, ...". This is actually something that I misread quite often -- that is, I somehow miss the presence of the words "not only" and as a result have difficulty parsing the sentence.
By the way, the astute reader may already have noticed my favorite grammatical error (if it indeed may be termed such), as I have utilized it in this very post. Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Jack, the problem is that later on, he pretty clearly says that the advisory council did express those views. From the context of the chapter, it has to be either a "not only . . . but also" or an "and." Right now I'm leaning more towards "completely crappy sentence" than "dropped word." I'm asking him what he means, but right now, I'd rewrite it like this:
quote:The problem has been raised by members of the department advisory council, other faculty members, prominent alumni, various chairs, and increasingly by editors of major publications who see the BYU graduates as being unprepared for an environment outside of Utah.
[ January 14, 2004, 05:04 PM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
I know! It's the word "utilized." High on my list of annoying words.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Because of this book, I now hate the conjunction "as well as."
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Jon Boy, I think your rewrite of this section -- "do not see the BYU graduates as being prepared or able to function well in an environment outside of BYU or the state of Utah" -- substantially changes its meaning, although it improves the clarity.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Yeah, I think I went overboard and cut a little too much. Any suggestions for a better balance between original meaning and clarity?
Posted by Robespierre (Member # 5779) on :
Ironical
Irreguardless
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I once did a proposal for the Chrysler Corporation.
Being the smart person I am, I ran the Spell Checker on it before printing it out.
When it was done I had a beautiful written proposal, for the Chiseler corporation.
Do computers make Freudian slips?
(What a title for a book.)
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
quote:I know! It's the word "utilized." High on my list of annoying words.
Annoying, I'll grant you. (Sorry about that. ) I don't think it's grammatically incorrect, though.
quote:Ironical
Actually, Webster lists this as a variation of "ironic". (There, I did it again!)
One of the favorite words of some of my high school classmates was "conversating" (or, "conversatin'").
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
My current annoyance is the use of 'lead' as the past-tense of 'lead.' The 'its/it's' thing used to bug me, but I generally just accept it now. I was surprised to see both spellings used in one sentence and have them both be wrong, though.
--Pop
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Mike, are you talking about the period/comma inside/outside quote marks? Because the American and UK/Canadian/Australian/etc. conventions are quite different.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
quote:Mike, are you talking about the period/comma inside/outside quote marks? Because the American and UK/Canadian/Australian/etc. conventions are quite different.
Yes, indeed. I'm curious: what are the differences in conventions? (That is, where are they sane?)
I've just remembered one that really annoys me for some reason. People don't know how to spell "lose". "Loose" has an /s/ sound at the end, not a /z/! Posted by Trisha the Severe Hottie (Member # 6000) on :
Part of the culture at my previous web hang-out spot was "ROOFTOP." Which is what someone's spellchecker had made from "ROFLMAO".
[ January 14, 2004, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: Trisha the Severe Hottie ]
Posted by SirReal (Member # 5257) on :
I can't stand it. That is something with up-which I will not put.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Mike, I believe that both they (UK, et al.) and we (US) put ?s, !s, and ;s where they belong logically (inside the " "s if part of the quote, outside if not); while they do the same for .s and ,s, and we always put them inside, regardless of use.
It's one of the few grammar/usage differences where I think their way makes more sense than ours. Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
My (Canadian) style guide says to put commans and periods inside the quotation marks, colons and semicolons outside the quotation marks, and dashes, question marks, and exclamation points inside the quotation marks only if they are a part of the quotation.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hmm. Maybe it's UK-only? Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
I have no idea. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic. In the United Kingdom, Canada, and islands under the influence of British education, punctuation around quotation marks is more apt to follow logic. In American style, then, you would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's "Design." But in England you would write: My favorite poem is Robert Frost's "Design".
So according to that site, I was correct the first time. Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
He did it again!
The computer programmer sent out an e-mail early this morning to a dozen councils with, in the subject line, "Software Up Date"!!!
First, they shouldn't send out ANYTHING without vetting it through the editors. Second, what on earth!?!
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
Maybe he's talking about the Date when the Software will be Up. Though using a hyphen would make that a little more clear.
Posted by jehovoid (Member # 2014) on :
I like it when people try to be proper and say "between he and I" or the like.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Some more stellar examples:
quote:"Both the Daily Universe and the broadcast entities would increasingly find themselves producing mediocre journalists would work for meciocre organizations," Barney believed.
Allegedly, this is a quote from a faculty member. I hope that it's just a mistake and that the journalism professors don't all write like this.
quote:Lacking diversity on its faculty and a conformist approach few students ever evolve to real reporters, the edgy people that are needed to push back the envelope."
Allegedly, this is another quote. However, there's no beginning quotation mark, so I'm not sure if the entire thing is a quote, or the beginning is some sort of lead-in. Either way, the non-parallelism and dangling modifier makes me cry.
Posted by Javert Hugo (Member # 3980) on :
Now I'm fascinated by the journalism program at BYU.
My group of friends at the moment are almost to the (wo)man BYU graduates, and there are some of the funniest disconnects. We went to a cabin for the weekend, and there were 25-year-old men and women wondering about a chaperone.
Oh, what was the other one? Road trips. Nobody's been on road trips with a mixed group. Also, academic politics - that liberal bias OSC keeps talking about? - they didn't know it existed.
What else does the thing you are editing say? Do you agree with it?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:What else does the thing you are editing say? Do you agree with it?
It's a 367-page manuscript, and I've only read to about page 200 so far. It's not terribly interesting, to be honest. Lots of it talks about the changing programs, faculty politics, and so on. But one of his big points seems to be that journalism students don't learn enough about journalism to actually become journalists. Rather, they become the next generation of faculty at BYU. I heartily agree with his assessment of the skill level of most journalism students. The Daily Universe is poorly written and poorly edited. It's pretty clear that most of the students aren't learning good writing and investigative skills.
The problem is that the author falls into the category of graduates without much real-world experience. He knows enough about journalism to sound like a journalist, but his writing is generally atrocious. I've been editing this book since almost the beginning of last fall semester, and I'm nowhere near done with it. The sentences I've posted are fairly typical; not every sentence is like that, but there are usually a few on each page.
So do I agree with it? Yeah, I guess so. I already had a pretty negative image of BYU's Communications Department, especially the journalism program, before I ever started reading this book. And this book has only reinforced that image.
Posted by Alucard... (Member # 4924) on :
The state of Pennsylvania had a slogan that was actually imprinted on ALL license plates that read "You've Got A Friend In Pennsylvania". Some of them are still floating around out there on older cars...
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:
quote: Ei.
Eh?
Okay, so I'm not perfect either. There's a reason I only posted spelling errors.
I didn't even have to scroll up to guess that it was I (uh oh, is it I or me?) who put Ei.
So, oh great one, what is the correct way?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
I don't know. I wasn't sure what you were saying. Did you mean "i.e."?
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Yes. *sob*
EDIT: And only now do I realise I actually put it backwards.
That's only a little embaressing. Please ignore my incompetance.
[ January 15, 2004, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: Teshi ]
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
*pat pat*
I don't know if this helps, but it stands for the Latin phrase id est, meaning "that is."
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Thank you. I'll remember that. id est = that is = i.e.
Posted by lcarus (Member # 4395) on :
Check it out: Jesse Jackson is so dumb he even misspells words when he speaks :
quote:Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, said that the pop star "deserves due process," and that "the newsrooms should remain objective and the global community must not hasten to judgement."
Heck, he can't even be quoted without the punctuation getting messed up.
Or Yahoo news could be incompetent. *shrug*
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Ic, maybe I'm just tired, but I'm not seeing the problem.
[Edit: ok, I see an extra comma after his name -- is that the error you're noting?]
[ January 15, 2004, 11:27 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by lcarus (Member # 4395) on :
That was one. Also the spelling of "judgment."
(Which is also misspelled on a recommendation form I was asked to fill out for a local university . . . When I pointed it out to a counselor at my school, she argued with me! )
[ January 15, 2004, 11:33 PM: Message edited by: lcarus ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hate to tell you this, Ic, but she was right. I confirmed with Merriam-Webster -- "judgment" is the original spelling; "judgement" an acceptable variant.
English is weird.
Posted by lcarus (Member # 4395) on :
Several physical dictionaries I looked it up in, and MS Word, FWIW, don't recognize "judgement."
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
My spell-checker doesn't like it either. But it has been used in the UK for some time, and seems to have become accepted here as well. I still think it looks wrong -- but I also am still getting used to using "hopefully" to mean "it is to be hoped." Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
"to" for "too" Mars thread
I thought the Universe was actually pretty liberal. They were all agitating against the U.S. invading Iraq. So if they were ignorant of the liberal bias, is it possible they are part of it?
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
MS Word's spell checker is pretty lacking. It misses lots of other perfectly cromulent words. What dictionaries did you check? Merriam-Webster and American Heritage both have it, and M-W is one of the best dictionaries out there.
The Universe, liberal? This is the first I've heard about it. Sure, people have protested the war in Iraq, but everybody's doing that. That hardly makes them liberal.
[ January 16, 2004, 10:16 AM: Message edited by: Jon Boy ]
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
The only things worth reading in the Universe were Eric Snyder's column, the student opinions, and Police Beat. I could never tell if Police Beat were written tongue-in-cheek or not. It tried so hard to be serious about what were usually such funny events. It would get to the end of telling about somebody's can of pop being stolen, and then say, "Police are still investigating the incident." Delicious.
The student opinions were worth a few chuckles at well. I'm fairly conservative, but some of these guys took the cake. I remember one guy scolding the women on campus for being too good looking and making all the men have inappropriate thoughts. And he was serious. Everyone on campus with a stick too far up their you-know-where seemed to get their turn in the op-ed pages.
Eric Snyder, of course, was usually the only reason I picked up the paper on whatever day his column ran (I can't remember). He was the closest thing to a celebrity that I ever saw at BYU.
Posted by Julie (Member # 5580) on :
Microsoft Word keeps trying to make me change "there" to "they're" in one spot, and I definitely mean "over there" as opposed to "they are." Spell check telling me I'm wrong. Posted by lcarus (Member # 4395) on :
That's not spell check, that's grammar check. And MS Word's grammar check should be turned off. It is literally wrong more often than right.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
It is indeed. OTOH, if you know the rules of grammar fairly well, it can be a useful way to catch silly errors. Like the verbs I put in the wrong tense all over Hatrack yesterday! Don't know what was wrong with me, but I later caught three (I think) times where my verb doesn't agree with my subject or is in the wrong tense.
I am NOT going to go back and fix them. I am NOT that obsessive. No, really, I'm not. (Well, and having an edit time/date hours and hours later than the post bothers me more. )
I'm just going to let them stay there and bug the hell out of me. Especially since one already got quoted by someone.
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
Why? What did I do?![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Though you may not find it in a dictionary, it's a really nice combination of "frustrated" and "flustered"; the meaning is quite clear from its components (and from context, no doubt). As long as it's used with the knowledge that it's not a "real" word, I've got no problem with it. Another one along these lines is "twidgeting", which is one of my favorite pastimes.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
) I don't think it's grammatically incorrect, though.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
Now I'm gonna have to look it up! ![[Cry]](graemlins/cry.gif)
Thank you. I'll remember that. id est = that is = i.e.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Ic, maybe I'm just tired, but I'm not seeing the problem. ![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Mars thread![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)