I’ve discovered something interesting recently, through the process of taking a Spanish class: You never think about the mechanics of your native language. (Well, I think about the mechanics of my native language, but I could hardly be a very good editor — or soap-box grammarian — without doing so.)
Your brain knows how English works. You picked up its oddities as a child, and trying to explain what you are doing when you’re conjugating a verb, or choosing a tense, or putting a sentence together is just about impossible.
In a foreign language, you have to struggle to understand what a reflexive verb is, what the indirect pronoun is, and what on earth you would do with the present subjunctive. You know all this stuff in English; you just don’t know what it’s called. And this means you should be very careful when trying to explain the use of English to a non-native speaker.
At the end of my Spanish class last night, there was some confusion because the teacher (a native Spanish speaker who speaks English as a second language) was trying to differentiate between what we had covered last class (the one the week before) and what we would cover in the last class (the final one). He asked us how he could indicate which he meant, and the other students all told him it was just based on context.
But this isn’t true. It just seems true to a native speaker because you don’t think about how you’re using the language.
Sure, context helps. Talking about the past helps to indicate that you mean the class from the week before, and talking about the future clearly indicates you mean a class that is still to come. But context is not the only difference:
- Last class is the previous class.
- The last class is the final class.
The things that rattle around in an editor’s brain!
I’ve had two separate people draw my attention to this image now, so I suppose it’s time to post it here. Thanks to Ric and Lloyd for calling my attention to this gem — I guess I’m getting a bit of a reputation for being a cantankerous editor.
This is just so delightfully ironic. And I love that she’s made it so easy for all of us soapbox-types to poke fun at her by double-underlining her mistake!
Here’s a painful headline from Macleans.ca:
Myanmar’s military rulers view all foreigners, even aid workers with suspion
For me, this raises two questions:
1. What is suspion?
2. Why do the aid workers have it?
The above image is a screencap from the help files in Excel 2007. If the “Waht” isn’t awful enough, just try to decipher that second sentence. Yes, this is so helpful. Perhaps a proofreader would have been a good idea?
Vancouver’s new smoking regulations have resulted in a flurry of horribly misspelled, badly punctuated, and otherwise disgusting new signs on patios all over Vancouver.
Is it really that difficult to spell-check? Must you really say that smoking is “prohibbitted”?
This recent flurry of terrible abuses of the English language made me want to do some walk-by editing with a big, fat Sharpie. But, as a well-behaved editor, I’m more inclined to go home and whinge about it on my blog.
I sat through an unnecessarily long and painful software training session the other day (Office 2007 — thanks again, Microsoft), and my instructor had two verbal tics that only contributed to the length and pain.
Every time he asked anyone to do anything, he followed up with “if you would, please.”
And any time he explained just about anything, he finished with “is what it is.”
This led to monologues that sounded like this:
Okay, now click on the ribbon, if you would, please. This ribbon is a new feature, is what it is. Now create a new document, if you would, please. Now create a new slide, if you would, please. Choose the movie clip template, if you would, please. The movie clip is a new template, is what it is.
I understand verbal tics and delay tactics are necessary to allow the brain to catch up to the mouth, but this was clearly a session this trainer had delivered hundreds of times before, in exactly the same language-battering way. We wouldn’t put up with this kind of nonsense in writing, so why is it okay in speech?
There was a time once, I think, when people used real words.
Not anymore.
Ever heard of a twuncer? A soiler? An alcopop?
Read all about it, and groan and gag, here. It hurts my poor editor’s brain.
The Editor’s Association of Canada has opened a cafepress store featuring some cheeky-cute editor gear. The taglines on the items include:
- Line Tamer
- You write it. We right it.
- Message Therapist
… and my favourite: May I heighten your textual pleasure?
Check them out at: http://www.cafepress.com/eac_acr
And then you do this:
However, the club said if the swelling and pain reduce within the week, it would allow Ohlund to continue playing in lieu of slight discomfort and he would then undergo surgery in the off-season.
Well, yes: playing in lieu of slight discomfort sound like a great idea, but somehow I don’t think that’s actually what they meant.
In lieu seems to be one of those expressions that gets abused on a regular basis. I’ve seen it used to mean “in light of.” Here it seems to mean “despite.”
But it’s really quite simple. Lieu mean “place” or “stead.” So in lieu = instead.
I passed a restaurant on my walk home yesterday with a sign on the awning that said:
That one little “s” makes that sign rather terrifying. A quick proofread could have saved it!
