|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
Errer is NOT error;
- but if error is that which is not correct, then errer IS error!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Because some of us have a personality that demands that things BE the way they ARE, and not they way they aren't. I think I've made it fairly clear here that I don't like gray areas. I want things to be either black or white. Or maybe sometimes one and then the other.How painful it must be for you to merely exist.  I am not against error-free communication, because I make my living trying to write lucidly about technical subjects for a technical audience. But, I know that language is as unruly as a rebelious teenager, always wishing to slip the arbitrary bonds with which folks attempt to constrain it. Lots of online writing is ephemeral and most of us do not take the writers to task for a typo, misspelling, or grammatical blunder, though of course we may cluck our tongues to ourselves when we read it. What amazes me about English orthography is that so many people are invested emotionally in a system that is at best terrible, unreasonable, and ad hoc. I for one would be happy to drop our system for one that made sense tomorrow, but short of a revolution it ain't gonna happen. As for black and white in matters linguistic: have you ever looked at a dictionary or read a poem? There's nothing black and white about language, period! I am not chastizing you for your personality. I am not saying you are wrong for your crusade. I am just wondering about your state of mind, perhaps because I too share it at times. If I am interviewing somebody for a tech writing / editing position and their resume is full of errors of spelling or grammar, I suggest that we not hire the candidate. But darn it, if such-and-such happened at 2 p.m., I can't stand it if somebody says it happened at 4. Even if the time has NO relevance to the point of the story, 4:00 is not 2:00! So--there's one reason for you.Unreliable narrators are not always the fault of shoddy authorship, sometimes they are a part of the story. And they have been with us from the beginning of the novel. I'm not saying it's always that way, but sometimes it is. Sometimes our passions get in the way of our enjoying a good story. I once read a critique of an 18th century story that concentrated on the horrid fact that the author didn't know the difference between 's' and 'f', because most of the time these two letters were confused. The critic didn't know about long esses.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
jheem>> I make my living trying to write lucidly about technical subjects for a technical audience
When I was in charge of some curriculum development for a UNIX, C, & C++ course, I caught a typo by the UNIX curriculum writer... "In order to [whatever], you mearly halfto [whatever]"
Good Lord, if I didn't pitch a High Holy FIT over that one, and I don't mind telling you I was totally justified. How much credibility does the writer, the editor, the publisher, or anyone else in the chain of development retain if something like that is thrown to an academic audience? <*SIGH*> Sheesh!
And I caught it after it had been through one rewrite and crossed the "editor's" desk twice. I spent many subsequent hours with my new best friend, the fine-toothed comb...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475
veteran
|
|
veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
Funny, sad, but true. The editors were probably in a meeting trying to make the world safe by arguing about the amount of space between a bullet and its text.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 725
old hand
|
|
OP
old hand
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 725 |
OY! That's as bad as my pet peeve: should of.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
should of
Really. I hate it when folks spell uv that way.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 1,624 |
See .. see? Can't get anything right! that's "-iv", Faldo, "-iv"!
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Maybe in Zildia it's iv. In the real world it's uv, or either that or uhv, one.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
I woulda thought it was just "a"...
formerly known as etaoin...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,372
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
381
guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
