Duke City Fix » Trains, planes, and uh, sex toys
andrew wrote:
MJH has a lot of time on his hands, and he’s not perfect either. For instance, he capitalizes “mother,” but two words later, the word “brother” is lowercase.
Is he implying that his mother is more important than his brother?
We all make misteaks.
Good one, andy (or is it Andy?).
I know I’m about to prove aNdy’s point, but he proved mine, so I’m happy to repay him.
You see, anDrew correctly apprehended the meaning of my capitalization. So, was my writing in error? Apparently not that part of it. I meant no insult to my brother, I just have trouble writing about my Mother without a capital, much as I cannot write god with one.
Still, while he grasped that subtlety of case, andY missed/ignored my sincere declaration of not being perfect.
By the way, we all have the same time on our hands, whether we realize that or not. mjh
I for one am
glad you took the time to point out these grammatical errors. I am somewhat surprised, given your opening caveat, that Andrew’s
response was a snotty as it was. That said, I believe journalists need to be held to higher standards than more casual writers.
Newspapers need to give good, rather than bad, examples of writing. It is difficult enough adequately to communicate with one another
without at best, distracting, or, at worst, irritating readers with bad grammar, or spelling, or punctuation. (On a mostly unrelated
matter, I shudder to think what violence text-messaging is doing to the fabric of our language.)
As for your capitalization of
“Mother,†it’s not that big a deal as you (almost) use it as a proper noun. Indeed lose the “my†and for sure you’re on solid
ground. (Besides, as one motherless child to another, I totally understand.) Moreover, your subsequent explanation to Andrew indicates
that on some level you thought about what you were doing. Knowing the rules and breaking them for a reason is different than simply
breaking them. Failing to catch these basic errors in the editorial process reflects on the quality and care given to the publication of
the Journal itself. I hope if anyone points these out to him that T.J. is mortified (or at least sufficiently embarrassed) (I would have
been), and that you continue to point these errors out as you spot them. After all, “misteaks†are still mistakes.
cko- “Knowing the rules and breaking them for a reason is different than
simply breaking them.” Amen to that.
Of small note, I added my to mother on an edit to stress it’s not mothers or motherhood that
I honor. Of course, the only time I ever called her “Mother” to her face was in deep mortification.
After cko posted her comment
on theFix, andrew responded there with this:
“andrew wrote:
cko – in hindsight, I can see how I might have come accross as
snotty.
My point, however, was that no matter how hard any of us try to do whatever it is we do perfectly, someone who is looking
hard enough will find problems with it.”
http://www.dukecityfix.com/index.php?itemid=1714#c
To which I just have to say I
wasn’t “looking hard” when the original errors poked me in the eye. I’ve long noted we see each other’s errors much more quickly than
we see our own. It’s not hard work — it’s human nature. peace, mjh