It’s Not My Fault……It Is My Fault
August 13, 2007
I giggled and laughed and laughed and giggled some more this afternoon as a read an article posted by Michelle Malkin about the misspelling of words by prominent newspapers such as the New York Times. Funny enough, the title of her post is, “Halp us, Noo Yorke Timez, weer Innernet dummys who kant spel”.
For those who may not know, I am the only one responsible for what gets published at this blog. I am the only one who writes my stories and I am the only one who proofs and edits them. I take blame for typos, misspellings and grammatical errors. No excuses.(I also take credit and blame for good or bad content)
On the other hand, newspapers like the New York Times, according to what Malkin writes, in theory every article that makes it’s way to print gets edited at least five times. That being said, why is it that the NYT can’t spell VIP names? Already this year the NYT has had to issue 269 corrections to names spelled wrong.
As has been often said and I preach this as well to newcomer bloggers, take time to edit your work. It is a direct reflection on you. If people read your writings and you can’t spell or write grammatically correct, readers wonder if you are a reliable writer. If they won’t come back again and read you, you are doomed as a writer/blogger.
Bloggers take all kinds of crap from writers who refuse to accept that blogging is now an accepted means of reading news, information and commentary. We are the “new media”. I think the New York Times is one of those because when asked about their ineptitude in spelling words correctly and getting by the layers and layers of editors, they wanted to blame the Internet, which includes bloggers like me.
Evidently, when someone from the New York Times visits a website for information, they are just assuming that the spelling of words in what they are reading is correct, so they copy and paste it, I guess.
I can understand missing names as some of them read like an entire language’s alphabet but just about everything these days has spell check. Even the software I use for blogging has spell check. Firefox, the browser I use 100% of the time, provides spell check.
Spell check isn’t perfect. One example that gets by writers is when you type a word that is used improperly but spelled correctly. Simple examples of that are the words to and too, or by and buy. I don’t know how many times I run into people using the word “are” when they mean “our”.
Please, New York Times. Take the blame for the mistakes you make and stop blaming us stupid bloggers who aren’t smart enough to get real jobs writing. I’ll except the blame for my work and you except yours.
Tom Remington
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I agree with this one hundred percent. I’m a bit of a grammar Nazi, and I always proof my posts and run them through spell check. I’m not perfect, and I do make mistakes, but I do my best to see I don’t make many.
People who write blogs and can’t be bothered to use the English language properly really bug me. It is terribly hard to learn to write grammatically and to spell properly. If you expect someone to take the time to read what you write, you should take the time to make sure it’s written well.
SOMETIMES,I THINK PEOPLE SPELL AS THEY SPEAK.REGIONALLY,CERTAIN WORDS ARE PRONOUNCED DIFFERENTLY.BUT,WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO THE MEDIA,NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL,WE SHOULD BE GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT.NO ONE IS PERFECT.WE STILL KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN.SO HOW ABOUT THAT NEW YORK TIMES.
I want to echo your thoughts on this post with another example. Teaching classes at Kent State University (Department of Psychology), I’ve been surprised about the number of errors in textbooks, including equations, misspellings, and improper references. Mistakes to happen, but like the New York Times, it can be difficult to understand when they are supposedly edited time and time again.
As for us bloggers, we will likely only be taken as seriously as we make ourselves out to be. So, I try to lean on the side of proofing, but I do make mistakes. I wonder what it would be like to work for a blog where there are editors, etc???
One of the biggest factors that drive writers to blogging is the fact that they don’t have to be subjected to editors, in the sense they are editing content.
Another wonderful aspect of blogging is the material is fast and can be posted in lightning fashion compared to news print. This has good and bad aspects with it.
As a blogger, I don’t think I would be happy with an editor. There are bloggers who are subject to their editors, I assume anyway. In some cases, like that of Jim Zumbo, who while blogging under the auspices of Outdoor Life, wasn’t being edited. Had he been blogging strictly on his own, what happened to him wouldn’t have happened.
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