You Can Write, But You Can’t Edit*
The lovely and intelligent RA asks: “I know we’re both the typo police, but what are your grammar/punctuation pet peeves? Like how I hate it when people misuse apostrophes. HATE.”
Here, in no particular order, are some of the things that make the editor in me absolutely crazy:
- Misplaced apostrophe’s. I’m with RA on this one. It’s not that hard, folks. Plurals don’t get apostrophes, possessives (and contractions) do.
- Redundancy. Especially “3am in the morning” and “5pm in the afternoon.” It’s repetitive. It’s redundant. It’s unnecessary. Please stop it.
- Subject-verb disagreement. It don’t make you look too smart if you talk like that. In fact, it makes you look like a total moron.
- Similarly, double negatives. You ain’t looking no smarter this way, either. Please, for the love of the English language, refrain from speaking this way.
- Asterisks that refer to nothing.**
- The inability to know the meaning of certain words. Their’s no reason not too know how to use some of the most basic words in you’re own language. This, for example, baffles and irritates me to no end.
- Comma splices. I know commas are tricky. I have a hard time, with them sometimes too. But there are some places in sentences that commas absolutely do not belong, no matter what. Places that you wouldn’t even pause if you were speaking. So why put a comma there?
- Inconsistent style. For example, if a publisher, writer, or editor decides to employ a serial comma in some places but omits the serial comma in other places — such as the cover, back cover and title page — within the same publication. Choose a style and stick to it. Simple as that.
- Any and all typos and grammatical errors I find in published material. If something has been professionally published, printed, and distributed, I expect it to have been edited and proofread with a fine-toothed comb. Anything less is simply unprofessional.
I know there are more things that make my fingers itch for a red pen when I see them, but these are the worst offenders. I also know that I am far from perfect when it comes to using proper grammar and punctuation, especially here in the casual forum of blogland. These are simply my pet peeves, and I think it’s possible — probable, even — that some of my common mistakes are pet peeves of yours. So, tell me — I’m dying to know. What drives the editor in you crazy?
*Regina Spektor
comments
13 Responses to “You Can Write, But You Can’t Edit*”
Leave a Reply
-
Search
-
Categories
A little Tipsy blog Book Challenge 07 Books Dance Family Feeling Blue General Happiness Get Active. Get AWESOME! Have Red Pen, Will Edit hiking Holidays Home Improvement Job's Daughters Kitchen Adventures Mr. Tim's Adventures in Teaching NaBloPoMo 07 Nostalgia Photos & Videos Pike's Peak Adventure Puppies Random Scrapbooking Smalls Sunday Spain Summer Abroad Tap Things that make me laugh Tim tv and movies Uncategorized Up on my soapbox Wedding Wednesday-Bensday Wednesday Smalls 'n Bensday
What I've Been Reading
I hate all of these too. Although I’ll admit, I, have, a, habit, of, using, too, many, commas, myself.
I could not agree more with the mis-use of the English language. I also hate when I read MSNBC.com or Fox.com the atrocious grammar errors. C’mon folks at least read over what you are typing at least once. Another thing I hate is the auto-correct feature in MSWORD. I turn that thing off. Have a nice Labor Day weekend all.
Pretty much all the ones you list, but especially the apostrophe one. It drives me NUTS!
Have you ever read Eats, Shoots and Leaves? It’s pretty hysterical. I, too, am a punctuation freak, but I try not to tell people that because I’m afraid they’ll critique my writing. I make mistakes. Just don’t tell anyone.
I agree with all of these; however, I also hate when people misuse the semi-colon. I’m a big fan of the semi-colon, but the rest of the world really seems to struggle with it.
I can’t even imagine listing all of my pet-peeves when it comes to the English language….because I probably break every rule there is!
Have a great weekend!
i really hate when people type out phrases you know they’ve heard in real life but haven’t seen written, and the way they write it out makes it obvious that they have no idea what they’re saying.
i always struggle to come up with examples of this when i’m put on the spot. there are a few that make me absolutely insane but they don’t want to come to mind.
like when i figured out that “le mot juste” was le mot juste instead of someone putting a funny french accent on “lemon juice” for no apparent reason.
that sort of thing. i hate that.
i also hate there/their/they’re mistakes and your/you’re mistakes.
my old job with the deaf people was RIFE with typos. even on “professional” memos there would be about 12 grammar mistakes per line and it would make me crazy. they had a note in the bathroom stall like that because the flusher for the toilet was tricky and one day i stood there with a pen and i EDITED that fucker with red ink so i could stop sitting there and letting it drive me crazy.
While I probably don’t deal with as much bad grammer as you, I feel a little of your pain. At work I’ve actually fixed mistakes in the on-screen text, only to have someone change them back because it “didn’t match the script.”
Oooo, asterisks that refer to nothing…that’s a great one. Still, my biggest pet peeve right now is the misuse of “myself”, for instance: “Please call Bob or myself.” Uhhhh, if you take Bob out of the equation, it’s just “Call myself.” It’s “Call ME.” That one REALLY gets me.
YES! The grammar post is here! I shake my fist valiantly with you!
You have an excellent point about not knowing the meaning of words. I don’t understand how people mix up wander/wonder, wary/weary, and then/than. THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORDS.
I can’t believe TLC! I know I often use too many commas, but what really gets me fired up is improper usage of “I” and “me.” There is a guy on the radio in the morning who does it all of the time and I’ve considered writing a letter of compaint.
“Complaint” is what I meant to say. That probably made you mad, huh?
I hate when people use Capital Letters incorrectly.
It’s one thing if you’re making a Very Important Point and trying to be funny, it’s another if you think that big words merit proper noun status merely because they contain more than two syllables.