I needed some scrap paper last night and found myself rummaging through an overflowing recyling bin during my hunt. I came across a newsletter published by town council a few months ago. The town has since switched to an electronic format (although they have yet to enable the internet link) so I can't enjoy the free monthly newsletters in quite the same way. ManNorth shook his head in astonishment when he found the newsletter shortly after it had arrived in our postal box and after I'd read it. And edited it. Profusely.
I couldn't help myself! I felt ready to march over to town hall and volunteer my editing services, if only to keep some sanity. Doesn't the mayor know what a run-on sentence is it looks like this and doesn't he know when to add proper punctuation and proper use of capitals or breaks between sentences or paragraphs and why oh why didn't anyone think to proof the newspaper before it was printed? I didn't volunteer my editing services of course, but bad grammar, spelling and run-on sentences drive me a bit nutty sometimes and usually when the writer should know better. This isn't to say that my writing is without error, as I know it certainly isn't and I've found both grammar and spelling mistakes in this very blog, but in a newsletter representing the people governing my town, I expect a wee bit better, and I don't think that this is asking too much.
I used ManNorth's handy scanner-printer-photocopier-in one (!) to scan the front page of the newsletter with my edits intact for this post but found them hard to read so I redid most of them on my computer. (Yes, there were more than I'll be showing and I had to just circle mistakes instead of actually correcting them in order to save space.) I admit that seeing the page dripping in figurative red ink on my screen brought tears to my eyes (figurative, not literal) and no small sense of accomplishment. Now, I'm not a mean person, and I think it more important that there is communication between the town council and the town's residents, but proper grammar, makes it better communication, with less potential for misunderstanding. (Hence, IMHO, my abhorrence of the current fad of texting and reducing everything to abbreviations and shortform. LOL! Sometimes NAOLPKT we've no idea what they are saying. NRN!)
It's been some time since I was employed as a teaching assistant and marked essays and exams and in a small way, I miss the tiny boost to the ego that correcting papers can give. (Aren't I horrible?) I once completely emptied two red pens while marking a batch of undergraduate essays and although I felt a bit badly as the essays became rather aesthetically unappealing in appearance -owing in small part to my horrid penmanship and use of rollerball pens, I felt that I'd done my students a service and one that was my duty. And it was fun.
Today I add to my blogroll a few links to blogs written by others with an inner stickler, as Lynne Truss so aptly explained it in her book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. (I must thank my mother who knows me well enough to have bought me two of Lynne's books which I've gratefully added to my library as both comic relief and handy reference.) I'm not about to start an entire blog to fulfil the needs of my inner stickler but I'll happily visit such blogs now and again when I feel the need. I've sent a copy of the newsletter to Red Pen, Inc but don't know if the grammarphile will use it for her blog fodder, hence this post. I don't know if The Grammar Vandal actually advocates carrying around a permanent marker for impromptu corrections, but one might wish they would. Apostrophe Abuse is a fun, if distressing, read. Those apostrophe's just show up anywhere people 'think' they might want to 'hang! (Yes, those were all intentional apostrophe mistakes just now!) Finally, one might pay a virtual visit to Literally, A Web Log if they, like me, are bothered when others literally use the term literally when they mean figuratively. I mean, I just literally have a cow when others do that. Don't you?
A final word: although obvious grammar mistakes do bother me in published work, such as in books, articles and advertising, I really don't mind when encountering grammar mistakes in casual writing, such as in friendly email or in blog comments. I'm certainly more interested in what the author of such writing has to say than whether it is grammatically correct or not. (So please, keep commenting and writing me email without fear of offending my inner stickler!)
Without further ado, with the intention of comic relief, I present the front page of the newsletter, redacted (click to enlarge):
