Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: Monterey Bay, California -- watching the sea lions, whales and otters! :D
1,918 posts, read 6,793,991 times
Reputation: 2708
Advertisements
Quote:
CA4Now: Hand-printed sign taped to a circuit machine at the gym that wasn't working: "I'M BROKE."
(I REALLY can't take it anymore!)
Hey, wait a minute. You're in California??? Then you should know that the machine was "talking" to you through mystical vibes in the air, and it's a "homeless" machine! It IS broke and it was looking for a handout so it could be fixed!
I'm surprised it didn't have another sign attached to it saying, "Dreaming of a hamburger...." or something along those lines!!
Funny you should mention that, because the last time I was in south Florida, the number of typos I saw in the Miami Herald was nothing short of frightening. It was so bad, I was thinking that knowledge of proofreading must be strictly prohibited in their offices.
Maybe they only take the dregs of journalism school, I don't know. Critical reading certainly seems to be discouraged.
Some things, you hear wrong so frequently, you have to actually stop and think which way is correct. Like "Child Progidy".
During the Stanley Cup, I heard a commentator call Dustin Byfuglien (correctly pronounced "Bufflin") 'Bustin Dufflin', and now I always have to stop and think.
My sister is a wonderful Mrs. Malaprops. She calls the TV weatherman a "meteorite". When Mike Holmgren was coach of her beloved Packers, she called him "Mike Hologram".
The schools have a name for misspellings they refuse to correct: "inventive spelling." It's deemed a good thing . . . I'm concerned that the teachers these days don't know how to spell or speak correctly themselves.
My pet peeve is when the reflexive is used incorrectly in an attempt to sound smart, as in, "Please return the forms to either the secretary or myself." GAH! It's as if "me" is the leper of the word world.
There is a young aspiring writer I was doing beta reading for, and TRYING to help her with her grammar. She has gotten better story-wise, but ...
How do you wade through a paragraph that has no periods? How can you tell who is speaking when everyones lines are in the same large paragraph, often without periods between? I've shown her how to do it and finally got her to do a spell check, but she claims nobody cares about grammar.
However, those who read do notice and it's a shame that she doesn't get this. She can tell a good story if anyone is willing to decypher it.
With each passing day, I find myself more and more at odds with computers. People have begun relying on them as the be-all and end-all. But, for heaven's sake, they're machines! The Internet Generation apparently doesn't recognize the old acronym GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out).
Not long ago, I had some difficulty with my friendly local cable TV company. So I called them up and explained the problem (someone in my building had been fooling around with the wiring, and I was being billed for the "adult movies" he was ordering). The woman from the cable company listened patiently, then informed me that the movies had been ordered on my second cable box. I have only had one cable box since the day I began subscribing to their so-called service, and I told her so. She replied--and I quote--"Our computer says you've got two cable boxes."
That was the last straw; I was no longer obligated to be polite. So I informed her in no uncertain terms that the company needed a computer upgrade. And that it passed my understanding how a multi-billion dollar company didn't have the resources to send someone over to my place and see with their own eyes that I was telling the truth.
There is a young aspiring writer I was doing beta reading for, and TRYING to help her with her grammar. She has gotten better story-wise, but ...
How do you wade through a paragraph that has no periods? How can you tell who is speaking when everyones lines are in the same large paragraph, often without periods between? I've shown her how to do it and finally got her to do a spell check, but she claims nobody cares about grammar.
However, those who read do notice and it's a shame that she doesn't get this. She can tell a good story if anyone is willing to decypher it.
I've heard that a lot in writers' workshops and forums/message boards. "I have ritten a rely good book that will be a bestsellor." When someone suggests they pay attention to the rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation, some of them become angry, apparently feeling that their artistic talent is above such trivial matters and that they will so impress a publisher that editors will swarm clamoring to fix their errors.
just the other day, i saw the following comment about a temperamental, diva-ish person: "she was a real pre-madonna."
lol
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
