Lost in Translation

Although I can't imagine why "translation" would be required for a synopsis of an English-language movie being screened in a primarily-English-speaking country, this reminds me of the lyric sheets on those bootleg cassettes we used to get from Indonesia...

When his daughter leaves for work, a grandparent must care for his three grandchildren in ways the 21st century, but it soon resort-style old-school parents.

Unedited content: the risks of crowd-sourcing-as-journalism

AddictingInfo.com - it's a site I often frequent, and link back to if the content is interesting enough. But.

I sent them an email this week, specifically re this article.

******
OK, this has to be said: does Addicting Info have ANY actual copy editors? Do these articles get run by ANYONE with a functional understanding of the English language? Usually I just wince & carry on, trying to ignore the runon sentences or the got-lost-in-the-woods-during-a-dependent-clause fragments, but it's getting embarrassing. Really. This article is getting picked on just because it's the worst of the last 9 or 10 I've read, but it does seem to be an ongoing problem.

AUSTRALIAN CRIME REPORTING v. English as she is spoke

Just a few notes, addressed to The Media:

(1) OK, here's the thing: at some point, the phrase "shot dead" tripped and fell head first into the Media-way, and - instead of driving over it until it was just a grease stain - the media pulled over, picked it up and took it home. "The woman was shot dead" - NO! Gah.

Look, it's not hard: has anyone ever been "stabbed dead", or "drowned dead", or "beaten dead", or "suffocated dead"? NO! Because that implies that the person was ALREADY DEAD, and *then* was shot/stabbed/beaten/suffocated. The phrase you want, Media, is "shot and killed".

(2) This one is far rarer, but it made the mistake of crossing my path soon after an instance of (1): "a man was killed today in Melbourne, after being hit by a train." Now, that right there? THAT is a bad day. First he gets hit by a train, and then later he is killed! That is one unlucky guy.

<\rant>

UK: medical fail, typo win

The complete removal of a UK woman's stomach, to remove what was believed to be a cancerous tumour, turns out to have been unnecessary; pathology confirmed the mass was benign.

A very sad story, I hear you say, if perhaps a little off-topic? Ah, yes - but wait, there's more.

In the article, we have this gem, a textbook case of an accidentally humorous typo:

An undisclosed payment will be used to finance care and support for the remainder of the woman...

Prepositional Hypotension

"He couldn't remember the last time he had cried. He hadn't even cried on his mother's deathbed."

-- Preston & Child, Gideon's Corpse

Why/how was he on his mother's deathbed? You can only be ON your own deathbed - you are AT someone else's.

Whe&apos;re soo hapy too cee yu!

Why do professionals still allow this nonsense on their websites? This was the response I got after signing up for a 2-hour course on website-building (since I'm clearly not using my domain name); problems with "wohoo", "your" (1st reference) and "put".

Seriously. People. If your material looks like it was written by a dyslexic kindergartener, anyone reading it automatically winces at it and is less likely to use your services.

Stop it.

Copy Editing Is Crucial

Dear DailyMail.co.uk [but take note, other media outlets]

Copy editing is seen by many media organisations as a low-ranking and slightly demeaning position, and I'd really like it to be taken more seriously.

For example, the attached screenshot. Initially I had NO idea what word you were aiming for here, but does "clammed" mean "slammed"? Unless your copy editors are non-English-speakers - and at times I believe they must be - there's simply no excuse for this to get past the keeper.

Poxy HTML code

If anyone knows how to fix this issue with the apostrophes, please get in touch. New Blogger app not doing so hot, may have to go back to BlogPress.

Apostrophe&apos;s &apos;Should Not Be U&apos;sed In Front Of Every &apos;S

Ack. All I can see is the awful randomly placed apostrophe; "words", plural, should not have one.

See The Oatmeal's excellent summary of the rules of usage.

Y&apos;all

Why is it that the same people who invented the word "y'all", being short for "you all", insist on spelling it "ya'll", being short for...?

Reporting typos to the US government...

...makes me feel like I should be doing it from an encrypted disposable mobile or something.

Anyway, I sent this email to ICE:

Re the page, "Do I need to apply for ESTA?", the last paragraph starts with, "Is it important" (query), when I believe it should say, "It is important" (instruction).

"Note: Is it important to PRINT a copy of the document for your records. The printout is not required upon arrival into the United States, as the officers have the information electronically. Some airlines require the printout upon check-in, please check with your respective airline."

pâté v. pate

context is everything

Discreet or discrete?

Take the phrase "she wiped her mouth discretely". Now look at the definition of "discrete":


And "discreet":


So:
"The man was discreetly removed."

Remember:
* [dis]Crete is an island, seperate; and
* discreet is the opposite of ostentatious.

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"Revert"

I first noticed this word being used to mean "refer back to" or "reply" in emails from Indian colleagues. India has a number of delightfully anachronistic English words still in use (such as the online article I read about how the "cads" had gotten away, but the "sleuths" were on their tail), which always amused me, but "please revert" at the end of an email...? My muttered response was usually, "to what?"

According to Dictionary.com:



Lately, it's been used twice by people who should know better, so I thought I would point it out.

It might be an actual word, but in this context it's like "refudiate" - yes, I know what you meant, but no. Don't.

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[REVIEW] "Kronos" by Jeremy Robinson: 2*/5

Sea monster swallows girl. Father (marine biologist) vows revenge & goes to sea a-huntin'. Unscrupulous billionaire funds chase.


Sea monster = Jonah's giant fish? Sea monster holds key to immortality? -- explains evil rich guy's interest.


Oh, wait, daughter still alive "in the belly of the beast". Blah blah love interest. Blah blah evil rich guy's evil henchman. Sea monster is intelligent, fights back. Evil rich guy's pet great white shark (only lacking the "frickin' lasers") eats various people as they fall off the boat. God talks to daughter. Sea monster provides daughter with fish & oxygen. Fake priest working for evil rich guy helps father & love interest overcome evil rich guy & henchmen. Clichés further ensue. Navy rescues father, love interest. Sea monster blerchs up daughter on beach, communes with father, escapes back to sea. Sigh.

There is too much editorialising and - while horror / monster stories are supposed to stretch the bounds of reality - far too implausible a story. From the dad's "grrr, my girl got et by a monster, I will hunt it down and kill it" response to the daughter's "we have to move to this house because I saw it in a vision while inside the beastie" to the love interest being the existing owner of said house... it's too much.

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Oops

Poor proofreading can change your message completely. These were featured on Leno, but I promise they're still worth a look.

Arizona, maybe?


Gee up, Bessie!


Grandma's gettin' frisky.


Maybe that's a fancy name for the mud-wrap ladies...?


LASIK: fix your eyes, age 25 years, and get extensions. We're a muti-purpose service.


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Vocabulary word of the day: "misprision"

This was a new one for me.

In a Huffington Post article about police shooting civilians in New Orleans, post-Katrina, this paragraph:


I hadn't ever seen that word before, so I went to dictionary.com and found:






In simple terms, official cover-up. So there you are. We learn something new every day.

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Badly worded charity ads

Recently, we received this in the mail:



At first glance, this appears to be an innocent request for money for cancer research, BUT!! Then there is this bit:


So... support the youth cancer centre and we will make sure that from now on, adults will have a better chance of surviving cancer than kids. It's only fair.

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Communication is everything

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[Pet Hate] "shot dead" @newsaustralia

Just watching the Channel 9 afternoon news, and the story about the Chang killer being deported to Malaysia. In summary, the newsreader said, "when Victor Chang was shot dead".

This is one of the phrases which always leads to me shouting at the TV.

Technically, he was either shot when he was already dead, or he died as a result of being shot. It's a curiously unique usage, as no one is ever "knifed dead" or "drowned dead".

It's sloppy, at best.

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