Saturday, May 06, 2006

Blog Stuff: Death to the English...

...language.

The overall decline of literacy poked me in the eye again this morning. I swung by Oleg's LiveJournal, and clicked on a link to a movie he was excited about seeing. I read the blurb with interest until I got to this sentence:
Observing all is The Writer (Bill Murray) an ex-patriot American who sees Fico being drawn into events as the revolution changes everything.
...which totally put me off my feed.

To the knuckle-walking troglodyte who has somehow got himself a job writing copy for the production company: Bill Murray's character may indeed be an "ex-patriot"; not having seen your flick, I don't know. I do know, however, that the word you were looking for was "expatriate", which is a noun meaning "One who has taken up residence in a foreign land."

My collection of split infinitives, dangling participles, run-on sentences, and excessive vernacular is hardly "writing", but compared to a lot of what I read today, I feel like a regular Hemingway. For gawd's sake, is there not a proofreader left alive in this country?

8 comments:

  1. Hit ghost tush oh theirs tuo mulch truss tin spill czech errs

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  2. Ain't it nuthin' but a shame? Kids these days ain't got no sense of thur langige.

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  3. that were funny, shane.

    In fact, Tam, you are a brilliant writer. I am appalled by the spelling and grammatical errors that make it into print in major publications these days. Disappointing.

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  4. i dont c nething rong wif his engrish!!!!111

    People these days...

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  5. Pfffft. I could care less...





    I can't be the only one wanting to say, "Uh, Sparky, it's 'couldn't'. 'Could' means you care about it." Then again I guess I learned my lesson the first few times I said it and they looked at me like a dogs looks at someone the first time they hear Chinese.

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  6. No, there isn't. Instead, it's far more important to be from the left side of the aisle in the news business these days, but you already knew that.

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  7. the language is dead....

    go into any fast food joint and order a small fry. You will be told that "medium is the smallest size we have."

    I think Foamy says it best...
    http://www.illwillpress.com/sml.html

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