LEARN MOTHERFUCKING GRAMMAR.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

Ahhhhhh this is really pissing me off. I swear, my local newspapers are written by people with an increasingly slipping grasp of English conventions.

:banghead::banghead:

Someone tell the numbnuts to stop writing for the papers if they can't use apostrophes correctly.

:grr:

[underpants]

1. My grammar died when I was young

[Sanity Claws]

7. Is your grampar still alive?

[billyskank]

2. Calm down, your overreacting.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

3. Bastard.

:P

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

49. Its no big deal.

nt

[Burma Jones]

4. The WaPo, the NYT, even the New Yorker have been slipping

And I done learnt my grammatical abilities from the perusing of all these here newspapers and magamazines.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

5. It's so sad.

:cry::cry:

[supernova]

6. Take it from an erstwhile English teacher

you can't have a heart attack every time somebody makes grammar mistake's.


edit: I find grammar and syntax mistakes everywhere, even the BBC. Ugh.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

8. Oh it's not every time.

This has been brewing for some time now. :P

[texas1928]

9. Wh'ats wrong with it?

IL'l Pu'tem where I like.




:P






:hide:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

10. Arrrgh.

:P

[DarkTirade]

48. Oh, you speak Vulcan too? :)

[Ellen Forradalom]

11. I don't speak Motherfucking.

Where is that spoken, anyway? Motherfuckinglandia?

[Parche]

12. Grammar PEV

:bounce: :bounce: :hi:

[Oeditpus Rex]

13. Journalism students aren't being taught the basics of English anymore

and copy desks are shrinking and deadlines are being pushed up, all contributing to poorer construction.

[SteppingRazor]

18. Definitely true about copy desks shrinking. But I just graduated from J School a few years ago...

and grammar was rigorously enforced. In some classes, poor grammar could drop an entire letter grade off a paper. When working on the newspaper, if a fact error got into a story, you failed the class.

[Oeditpus Rex]

19. What J school did you go to?

[SteppingRazor]

20. University of Missouri n/t

[Oeditpus Rex]

22. It has a good rep

I was kinda surprised to learn that a few years ago. You don't expect to hear "Missouri" in the same breath as UWis, Northwestern, etc., but it's apparently the case.

:thumbsup:

[SteppingRazor]

26. It's the oldest Journalism school in the world

So, you gotta expect it to at least have a passable rep.

Aside from great veterinary and agriculture programs (kind of more along the lines of what you expect out of Missouri, yeah?), and a pretty good law school, it's about all Mizzou's got going for it.

But, yeah, excellent school. It's also the only one that operates an actual community newspaper that competes with the professional local daily (as opposed to just doing a school paper, though Missouri's got that too), and it's one of the very few at which the J School is totally independent of the college of arts and sciences -- thus, instead of a BS or BA in Journalism, I have a BJ. (Fill in your oral sex joke here)

[Robb]

14. I believe mother-fucking is a compound word

Technically, so is numb-nuts. :D

[SteppingRazor]

16. Motherfucker is one word, per American Heritage.

So there, numbnuts :P

[RebelOne]

25. It's not in my American Heritage dictionary. n/t

[SteppingRazor]

15. I don't even blame the writers.

By the time an article gets in the paper, it's been checked by the editor, at least one copy editor, and a proofreader, not to mention the incidental eyes-on-the-page over in the production department. If an egregious error gets into the final product, there's a lot of blame to go around. But in the end, I blame the editor. It's his ship.

[Oeditpus Rex]

27. Proofreader?

At a newspaper? :shrug:

Normal copy flow for a news section goes: rim editor > slot editor > section editor or assistant. At small papers, stories might get just two reads. Someone in pre-press might give a page galley a cursory read, but that's not their job.

But, yeah — ultimately, all responsibility goes to the EIC, whether he/she actually deserves it or not.

[SteppingRazor]

30. Don't look at me, I work for an altweekly.

At ours, it goes

Writer, to me, to copy editor, back to me, to production, and then it's proofread once it's in galley form.

[Oeditpus Rex]

32. Ah, okay

You've got more time. A blessing, that.

At the last paper I worked for, stories often got one read — the EIC, who was not a good editor. I tried to get to as many as I could before he did, but that wasn't easy, since I had my own pages to worry about. It was just me and him and the reporters — because, y'know, the important thing is to get the news out cheaply. :eyes:

I have a friend on the national desk at the Wichita Eagle. She's happy there, but when she was at the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, she called it "the page factory." (Not surprising for a Lee paper.)

[Book Lover]

35. Can I just say that your conversation makes me grateful to be working in books

Author, developmental editor, author, me, copy editor, author, copy editor; then at pages proofer/me/my boss/author (at the same time) and then proofer one last time. Mind you, this is for college textbooks - trade fiction and non- get a proofer at pages, maybe.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. I once worked as development editor of a textbook, and

it went through all those stages. However, teachers who adopted it still reported typos.

I think the typos mysteriously materialize as the books are sitting on the bookstore shelf.

How else do you explain a textbook on copyediting that spelled "visually" with three l's?"

[Monk06]

44. You have a copy editor? That is the definition of heaven in corrupt world....

of PC/Apple based 'journalism'.

My only experience with print media
consisted of this production model:

Writer = Me
Editor = Me
Copy Editor = Me

Galley Proofs edited by
Psychotic, deeply closeted, gay,
misogynist midget with anger
management and ADD issues.

Result the word Bargin in place
of Bargain appears in the headline
of an issue distributed on the floor
of an international business
convention.

Ad clients not amused, several threaten to sue.

Moral of the story is; unless your
copy goes through at least eight sets of
educated eyeballs your publication will
fail at the level of minimal competence.

[BOSSHOG]

17. I suppose there is an implied subject in your subject line

[Downtown Hound]

21. English is my goodest subject

I don't know what is rong with all these morans.

[triguy46]

23. An apostrophe is used to warn you that an 's' is soon to appear.

[jobycom]

24. Alternately, LEARN, MOTHERFUCKING GRAMMAR or LEARN MOTHERFUCKING, GRAMMAR

Its no big deal, it's rules are constantly changing.

[formerrepuke]

28. sound's like some one need's to get of there high horse's!!!

(stolen outright from another DUer's reponse to a long-ago grammar rant)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

33. Seriously?

Ahahaha, that would slay me.

:D

[WildEyedLiberal]

29. Yeah well, I was the editor of my high school's newspaper back in the day

(Okay, four years ago, but that's back in the day for me.)

Anyway, one girl turned in a story that was absolutely ATROCIOUS - spelling and grammar mistakes everywhere. I basically had to gut her story to make it printable.

After which, *I* was chastised by the advisor because my extensive revisions made the girl "feel bad."

So, if you wonder WHY people can't read and write for shit in this country, there's your answer.

Because it might make people "feel bad" or have "low self esteem" if you don't tell them that THEY TOO are a creative genius and a natural-born talent.

[Oeditpus Rex]

34. Lemme guess:

The advisor was an English teacher doing triple duty with the newspaper and yearbook.

Dog, I hate that.

[WildEyedLiberal]

37. She was an English teacher too. The yearbook advisor was a different knobhead

God, my journalism advisor was dumb as a box of rocks. I was an assitant editor my junior year, in 2001 - she almost let our special 9/11 special edition issue go to print with the huge headline "TERRORISTS REEK HAVOC ON UNITED STATES." If I hadn't wandered into the layout room after school, that would've been printed. She didn't realize the difference between "wreak" and "reek."

With teachers like that, is it any wonder kids graduate high school with an inability to properly use apostrophe's? :P

Edit: Oh, the irony of misspelling multiple words in a rant about spelling. :D But then again, I do proofread, unlike my erstwhile former journalism advisor...

[Oeditpus Rex]

39. Ah, the poor apo'strophe

Its so mi'sunder'stood. :(

And you're post wreak's of prejudiced again'st box's of rock's.

:hi:

[zanne]

31. Watch your language!

Let's please act like adults. Jesus Christ; you'd swear we were all Junior High kids.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

36. MOTHERFUCKING WHY?

:P

[driver8]

38. I speek gud English so go an fu*k youself.

You libruls think you are so intelijent.

[Radical Activist]

41. The standardization of spelling and grammar is one of the worst mistakes of modern society.

Things were better in the 19th century.

[Faygo Kid]

42. This is hugh. And series.

Its series that it's grammar ain't good.
And dont forget the speling.

http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/Story+Image_thumb_051006_story1.jpg

[The Straight Story]

43. grammur be overweighted, we needs to be fuckising on irick war

:rofl:

[BlueIris]

45. Sure. You first.

[struggle4progress]

46. Its cuss their outhousing the copywork to Idnia

[Gormy Cuss]

47. The untalented son of the publisher runs that rag now.

It shows.