Mediaite Needs a Proofreader

After performing an inexhaustive survey of articles on Mediaite (but not its sister sites), I have found the following errors:

• Unnecessary commas.
• Missing verbs.
• Incorrect pronouns, e.g., “they” instead of “there.”
• Questionable priorities. (Is “irresponsible” really worse than “inflammatory”?)
• Misused words in titles. (Did MSNBC really “promote” Glenn Beck’s rally? Or did they just talk about it a lot?)
• Amusingly incorrect comparisons in titles, e.g., “MSNBC Appears to Be Promoting Glenn Beck’s Rally More than Fox News” implies that MSNBC is telling people to attend Beck’s rally, and to watch Fox News, but more to attend the rally.
• Incorrect punctuation, e.g., semicolon where a comma should be.
• Incorrect words, homophones. (“Cantor through [sic] a smile on his face”? Seriously?)
• Attempted parallel construction with words that don’t allow for it. (“…described, ridiculed, and bewildered at.”)
• Misuse of “exact.” (Unless physicists have successfully managed time travel into the past, Glenn Beck’s rally was on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, not the “same exact day.”)
• Incorrect interrogative pronoun. (“Who she accused” should be “whom she accused”; “whom” is the object of “accused.”)
• Missing punctuation.
• Missing spaces between words.
• Noun-verb disagreement. (“Media” is plural and takes “are”; “paparazzo” is singular, while "paparazzi” is plural.)
• Apostrophes in possessive pronouns. (Correct: hers, its, theirs. Incorrect: her’s, it’s, their’s. Apostrophes are used in contractions and with possessive nouns, but not possessive pronouns.)
• Missing subjects.
• Typographical errors (“in” instead of “is,” “cowtow” instead of “kowtow.”)

These errors and others like them are in almost every article over the last few days. The website’s founder Dan Abrams posted a lengthy article that was mercifully free of errors, and regular contributor Steve Krakauer also does a good job of keeping the errors at a minimum, but for the amount of original text in the majority of articles on Mediaite, too often I find myself stopping to try to figure out what the writer means to say.

The errors just get worse in comments, but a goodly number of the commenters need to brush up on their reading for comprehension skills before worrying about their writing skills.

"Posh Nosh"

Posh Nosh is the best cooking show ever.

:)

Capitalizing Titles

Not every word in a title is necessarily capitalized. Initial articles (A, An, The) are, but internal articles (a, an, the) are not. Conjunctions (and, but, or) are not capitalized. Prepositions (to, in, on) usually are not, but some publications will capitalize prepositions of five or more letters (Above, Through, Under); this is a matter of preference. The to of infinitives are not capitalized. Titles are italicized. Authors and/or publishers are not. (Adapted from Webster's Standard American Style Manual, 1985. Wow. I need a new style manual.)

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew

Under the Volcano

A River Runs Through It (or, A River Runs through It, which I think looks a little odd, but is acceptable)

The Fellowship of the Ring

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

(I suppose I should mention that in On the Origin of Species, Darwin does not discuss the evolution of humans, that the definition of "race" in his times has fallen out of favor, and that some of the wording and editing of the content of the book were the direct result of consideration of potentially severe consequences had it not gained sufficient acceptance among Darwin's contemporaries. I suppose I should also write a separate post about that, but not tonight.)

Days and Days

I hate days when I feel like I've accomplished absolutely nothing, and I've been having far too many of them lately.

Spellcheck is the enemy

Just because two words look a lot alike and sound a lot alike, it doesn't mean they're the same word. And just because spellcheck doesn't tell you that you've misspelled a word, it doesn't mean that you haven't misspelled a word.

For example, spellcheck will not tell you that you mean "lose" when you wrote "loose." Spellcheck will not tell you that you mean "there" when you wrote "their" or "they're." Spellcheck will not tell you that you mean "too" when you wrote "to." Or "two."

Spellcheck is not your friend. Spellcheck is no one's friend. Spellcheck is the guy who "helps" you move in to your apartment, but is all too happy to drink the beer and eat the pizza after leaving all of the heavy lifting for you and your Chihuahua. Spellcheck implies that it's making promises, but it's only leading you on. It'll break your heart if you let it.

Huckleberry Finn and the Mosque

In recent decades, Mark Twain’s classic novel Huckleberry Finn has faced numerous banning attempts, often because of its profuse (and dated) use of the n-word. For that reason, it can be an uncomfortable read. The story, however, remains sublime, and the one character most frequently referred to by the notorious epithet can rightly be considered the book’s hero.

When Jim has his own freedom almost within reach, he runs into the runaway Huck. Jim knows that Huck’s father is dead (Huck is not yet privy to this information), so he also knows that this 14-year-old boy is alone in the world and that the world is not kind to 14-year-old boys like him. Jim sacrifices what he believes to be his one chance at freedom in order to protect the kid. The choice is heartbreaking and the sacrifice is noble and sad. Jim, through his choice, demonstrates the better nature of humanity that eludes most of the other characters. He made his sacrifice voluntarily, without being asked. He did it because it was the right thing to do.

Huckleberry Finn asks thoughtful readers under which circumstances they might be willing to sacrifice their own freedom.

Recent events beg different but related questions: Under what circumstances would you ask someone else to sacrifice their rights or freedoms? And what is the cost of setting that precedent? I submit that the criteria for requesting fellow citizens to suspend or sacrifice their rights should be at least as demanding as those for which one would willingly sacrifice one’s own rights without being asked to do so. I fear that I am in the minority.

The so-called Ground Zero Mosque has an unfortunate number of people insisting that Muslim Americans give up their right to build their community center in its proposed location because it is insensitive to the feelings of 9/11 survivors and victims’ families. (It should be noted that 9/11 survivors and victims’ families are not of one opinion on the matter.) Is “insensitivity” really the threshold we as a nation want to establish for requesting the suspension of rights? We claim that we believe all people have inalienable Constitutional rights, but too often we are willing to ask some groups (Muslims, gays, atheists, blacks, Latinos, Jews, Japanese, women, etc.) to serve their country, our country, by giving up the rights our soldiers, their soldiers, are fighting and dying to protect; and each time we make that request, we step a little farther away from the American ideal.

The President, in keeping with his Oath of Office, defended the Constitutional right of Muslim Americans to build their mosques. He later backpedaled, insisting that he was speaking only about the legality of it, and not the wisdom. Obviously, the same First Amendment that guarantees Muslims the right to build a place of worship wherever they want also guarantees others to express their opposition to it. But if you question the wisdom of building a mosque a few blocks away from Ground Zero, should you not also question the wisdom of opposing it?

The Answer is in the Question

Why are commercials for depression meds always so depressing?

Word Nerd: Healthy/Healthful

My dictionary includes "healthy" as one (but not the primary) definition of "healthful," but when it comes to discussing usage of the words healthy, healthful, and wholesome, it confirms what I had believed to be the case, specifically that healthy and healthful are not exactly synonyms. Something that is healthy possesses health or promotes health (my dictionary cites a "healthy climate"), while something that is healthful is conducive to physical health. So when it comes to food, if it's good for you, it's healthful, but if it's healthy, it's still alive.

Things that are "wholesome" have some freshness or purity, and are beneficial, either physically or morally. When it comes to food, "wholesome" and "healthful" are synonyms. But who says "wholesome" anymore?

Political Campaigns (Audiovisual)

Negative political ads would be a lot more entertaining if the voice-overs were all done by Bill Hader impersonating Vincent Price.

Come to think of it, so would positive political ads.

And OxyClean commercials.