Attention to detail ... not!

http://grammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/03/brooks-messes-up-in-politics-and.html

Honestly. A picture speaks a thousand words (with appropriate punctuation and proofreading).

Lee posts her garbled text and blames the text recognition program. What gets the blame for chunks of text shoved rudely in the middle of a word? I bet that one of the 150 copy editors at the New York Times would have picked up this one.

Vinegartits's hypocritical attitude towards error-free publishing amazes me.

Parellel construction

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/03/var-yahoo-shortcuts-yahoo_24.html

Lee writes:

>Hooper, You are showing that you not only go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but you demonstrate in this banal question above that you also lack subtlety of thought. <

Strunk & White write:

Correlative expressions (both, and; not, but; not only, but also; either, or; first, second, third; and the like) should be followed by the same grammatical construction.

A time not for words but action. [Incorrect]
A time not for words but for action. [Correct]


Edit:

Hooper, you are showing that you not only go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also demonstrate in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

or

Hooper, you are not only showing that you go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also demonstrating in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

The real problem is that this rot is tautologous.

>You are showing that you ... demonstrate in this banal question ...<

Further edit:

Hooper, you are showing not only that you go ga-ga over tacky board members and write dippy puff pieces about one, La Falliero, but also in this banal question above that you lack subtlety of thought.

This attitude says it all.

http://leedrurydecesarescasting-roomcouch.blogspot.com/2008/03/below-is-current-status-of-my-ethics.html

Lee said she had made her last post on her Casting Room Couch blog, yet this one appears. It contains this statement.


>Below is the current status of my ethics charge against the board attorney with the Florida Bar Ethics Commission. It's garbled in the PDF transfer mystery, but you can get an idea of what is going on.<


Here is some of the garbled text.


Enelosedis acopyofourlettertoMr. Gonza1ezwhithrquñ
Once you receive Mr. Gonzalez’s response. )VU have 10 days to file a iclnaial if dct if you decide to file a rebuttal, please said a copy to Mr. (ioorala. flc a a’y i a correspondence to me.
Please be advised that as an arm of the Supiune Coat of FiSda, lit FlotiiM investigate allegations of misconduct against attorneys, id wt apçixçris, inpra 1 It
attorney be disciplined. (sic)

But you can get an idea of what is going on? But you can get an idea of what is going on? This bugs me. This sour old cow crucifies anyone who puts a comma out of place, yet she is happy to post this gibberish.

I was going to mention this attitude a while ago when Lee wrote "Commas I can do. Graphics are a mystery." She can't be bothered to learn how to make her site presentable even though she labours over everyone else's possessive-before-gerund felonies.

I read sentences with missing commas easier than I read sentences presented in inch-high overlapping text. I understand "Did you see me swimming the English Channel?" more than I understand "id wt apçixçris".

Yes, I know that Lee didn't write it as such, but neither did its author. But she saw fit to publish it for people to read in its state. She couldn't be bothered learning how to tweak her text recognition tool in the same manner that people can't be bothered learning how to use commas.

I've got news for Vinegartits. Commas might be missing, but you can get an idea of what's going on. Writers might not use possessives before [what she calls] gerunds, but you can get an idea of what's going on.

Lee writes:
>Thank goodness, I am a writer.<

"I am a writer" is one of the "that" clauses with the "that" omitted. Vinegertits has written about this before. Thank goodness that I am a writer.

Edit: Thank goodness I am a writer.

Don't bother changing it, La Vinegartits; we can still get an idea of what's going on. ;)

Lee's difficulty with subject-verb agreement

http://tampabaygrammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/03/maxwell-jealous-of-obama-trashes-commas.html

Lee hashes subject-verb agreement. I've read it's a felony.

>Data enter a person’s ear and comes out the other ear shaped by the back roads, cul-de-sacs, and curlicues of the alembic of that person’s particular psyche. In other words, it comes out biased.<

Lee starts off maintaining that "data" is plural by using the plural verb "enter". She then uses the singular verb "comes", the singular pronoun "it" and the singular verb "comes" again.

She was trying to appear clever by insisting that "data" is plural. It lasted five words.

Osculate my gluteus

http://tampabaygrammargrinch.blogspot.com/2008/02/st-pete-times-womens-grammar-and.html

>What century do those geezers and I'm talking about their wheezy old attitudes, not their chronological ages live in?

I regret to report that Ms. Bancroft has fallen into a grammar felony: subject-verb disagreement. “Do” should be “does”: “What century does.” The grammar checker is good on spotting such subject-verb agreement errors.<

The grammar checker, my dear Vinegartits, is poor at spotting them, as are you. You've mentioned spelling and grammar checkers before, but I've never believed that a teacher with experience of 28 years would rely on them. Your comment alarms me. Your comment indicates that you really do slap some text into a Word document and hit "spellcheck", waiting to pounce on the squiggly green underlined bits. I tried it with Ms Bancroft's sentence, and the green line appeared. God forbid.

The subject-verb agreement in "What century do those geezers and I'm talking about their wheezy old attitudes, not their chronological ages live in?" is correct.

Try pumping this one into your grammar checker. What century does those geezers live in?

When the computer doesn't have all those nasty extra words in between, it is able to work out that "What century do those geezers live in?" is correct. You might be able to as well with a little help.

Rearrange the sentence.
Those geezers do live in what century.
Those geezers does live in what century.

See someone intelligent after class.







>I wrote to Slate and asked why in the hell it let this grammar poseur write prescriptive columns when he didn’t know his ass from his elbow. <

Lee once chastised me for using the word "arse" and wrote that she preferred the elegant "gluteus". Either she is using the "ass from elbow" cliche to sound more like a Valley working girl or she is one.