My love of parentheses.

Aug 30, 2009 23:22

1. Well, those allergies turned out to be a bonafide cold or virus or whatever. (I can never tell them apart.) I've been sick all weekend. Congestion, skin sensitivity, headaches, a bit of a fever, and total fatigue. I did buy a neti pot; while it helped a little, it wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. I seem to be over the worst of it now, but I ( Read more... )

grammar, sick day, fandom

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Comments 9

lomer August 31 2009, 03:30:35 UTC
It's the children. The children have germs. I have a cold too. Damn you children and your inability to cover your mouth while sneezing...

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wisteria_ September 2 2009, 02:00:24 UTC
Ugh, indeed. Guess I should just be glad it wasn't swine flu!

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a2zmom August 31 2009, 03:36:02 UTC
Sorry your feeling so crappy. And you're not the only way who has ranted about Time magazine's complete grammar fail. My husband can't stand it.

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wisteria_ September 2 2009, 02:01:13 UTC
The problem is that it's not only Time! I've seen quite a few errors lately in the NYT and other "fancy" publications. Sigh.

(And I'm so glad to hear the optimistic news about your family. All my best to you and yours.)

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hyzenthlay26 August 31 2009, 04:27:00 UTC
I'm not quite sure when my grammatical breakdown occurred, possibly after reading too much Ondaatje (or Faulkner or, gor, anyone), but most clearly there is a need for a comma after assitant in the instance you cite. And now I'm worrying about all of my own most recently written sentences. Eeek.

Journalistic grammar has devolved. I notice it constantly and it irks. Don't these people have editors?

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malkingrey August 31 2009, 13:23:28 UTC
Don't these people have editors?

Nobody has an in-house copyediting department these days, so far as I can tell -- and it was the copyeditors (those kindly souls who, when asked, "Does anal-retentive have a hyphen?" will reply with a straight face, "Only when it's used as an adjective") who kept the writers on the grammatical straight and narrow. Most book publishers hire freelancer contractors to do their copyediting on a piecework basis; entirely too many magazines and newspapers appear to have dispensed with copyediting entirely. (Because a good grammar checker and spelling checker can do the same job just as easily, right? Right?)

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malkingrey August 31 2009, 13:13:48 UTC
I've finally made my peace with the obsolescence of the Oxford comma

The serial (aka Oxford) comma will never die! At least not until they pry my keyboard from my cold dead fingers.

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workerbee73 August 31 2009, 14:43:25 UTC
No, no, no, it is ALWAYS okay to get riled up about grammar. The rules must be obeyed, and the masses must be educated.

VIVE LA GRAMMAR!!!!

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