Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
Okay, Cal, I'll play, but there's no need to get a
Press Democrat to do a treasure hunt for errors; there are plenty in your post. For instance, in the passage quoted above, you use a hyphen as a dash (which should have been a plain old period anyway), and the spacing is wrong, too. And, "Press Democrat" should have been italicized.
And in that sentence, "lead" should have been "led".
Wow--this is fun! Great idea, Cal!
Seriously, Bro (or is it Sis?), I understand how annoying it is to encounter so many errors in spelling, usage, grammar, punctuation, etc., and how tempting it is to see ourselves as better than those who are more raggedy than we are in these areas, but I have to remind myself that these errors are really only problematical when they interfere with the clarity of the message. It's fun to laugh at such errors, but making an issue of them when they really don't impact the clarity makes us look snotty and picayune. And if our own screed contains errors, the laugh is on us! :whackasmilie:
Recently, I publicly corrected a guy's error here on Wacco because it was in his ad for editing/proofreading services (!), and I felt it appropriate to warn prospective customers about the quality of his skills. He then sent me a private email in which he offered to demonstrate his skills by editing any material I'd send him, but I politely declined--partly because his offer included two misspellings and a spacing error!
I allow myself a number of non-standard spellings and other "errors", such as "gonna" and "wanna", in informal writing, but when editing/proofreading, I do it all as perfectly as I can. And as you've seen, I'm hawk-eyed. So here I'll just mention that anyone seeking top-notch writing/editing/proofreading services at bargain rates should contact me:
Dixon Wragg
(707) 527-6163
[email protected]
P.S. You might like the recently started Facebook page called "Apostrophes are for contractions and possessive forms, NOT plurals!" That's one of my pet peeves, and I'm sure it's one of yours, too!