Random thoughts and observations
This could happen to anyone, of course. And it could be worse, if the meaning were altered. As a young journalist, I was told to avoid using the word “now” because it was (a) usually redundant and (b) could sometimes be mistyped as “not”, which probably wouldn’t be noticed by an editor or proofreader, eg: [...]
As a copy editor it irritates me when organisations adopt names that don’t use capital letters. The practice has become common in the internet age. It defies all grammatical rules for a name to be uncapitalised. I’m a ruthless anti capitalist and kill stray capitals whenever I see them, especially in titles. The president of [...]
A letter arrived from the high school today. It was dated August 10, so it should have arrived earlier, but we don’t check the box more than twice a week and they had the wrong number in the address. Parents don’t like letters from schools. Normally it’s a bill, or there’s a prospect someone may [...]
Retarius wrote a blog post recently about the English language. Then I came across Johanna’s spelling blog. I’m interested in the development of English, how regional variations evolved and where the language is heading. For someone who has never undertaken formal academic study it’s probably unusual to be interested in linguistics, but I do find [...]
