Error-riddled but clueless: To "help" or not - by Leah St. James #grammar #amwriting

Dear fellow grammar nerds:

I know you’re out there. You’re the readers who take note when the wrong to/two/too (or there/their/they’re, roll/role, past/passed...) is used. The first time you might roll your eyes, but you’ll keep reading. Twice in the same page and you might cringe and send a silent message to the author to spend more time proofing. But more than that, if you’re like me, you’ll stop reading.

That happened to me the other day while I was reading an author’s promo blog. (It wasn’t any of our authors!) When I came to the first misused word (an error so bad, I actually laughed, until I was hit with a wave of sympathy), I almost started an email to let the author know there was a bad (really, really bad) error in the blurb. The second stopping point came courtesy of a misplaced modifier (a body part was doing something it shouldn’t be doing). But when the point of view started hopping from head to head so quickly, mine started spinning, I X’d out of the site.

This was all within a couple paragraphs. What do you think the odds are that I’ll purchase that book? Yep. Zero.

We all make typos or grammatical errors from time to time. There could be a few in this blog post, even though I’ve read and re-read to look for them. I’m so embarrassed to discover my own, or when someone else points them out, but I think something bigger is going on. I think there has been a slippage of general grammar knowledge over the past few years. Auto-correct features that seem to have been trained by the untrained masses don’t help.

 

Thanks to Bizarro cartoonists for the timely quip!

 Or maybe it’s not that writers today know less, but that more are publishing poorly edited content. It used to be that published texts—books, articles, etc.—were vetted by editors, probably several layers of them, before reaching the reader. Today, those layers have largely disappeared. Many self-published authors go cheap on editing because, let’s face it, most of us don’t make a lot of money in this business. 

Today it takes an instant to post a piece that could be filled with typos and those cringe-worthy errors. And the more they appear in public, the more those errors are ingrained into the collective lack-of-knowledge base. Maybe that’s how language changes over time—too many people making the same errors over and over until the error becomes the accepted form!

So what, if anything, should the grammar nerd do when stumbling upon those error-filled pieces? (I’m not talking about a single instance. I’m talking about those so bad, we can’t keep reading.) Do we just wince behind our screens and post something benign in the comments? Or do we send a private message to the author so he/she can make corrections? 

Maybe something like: Dear (name of author), I noticed you posted what was probably a draft of your blurb on your blog. I spotted several errors. I hate when that happens to me!”
 
I tell myself that I would want to know if that were my post....maybe. I think that for most of us, any unsolicited “corrective” contact, no matter how well intended, would come across as condescending, resulting in either embarrassment/humiliation or anger, or both. It could generate more bad will than any benefit to the greater grammatical good is worth!

As for the example I mentioned at the beginning, I don’t know the author, so I chose to wince behind my screen and post a benign comment. But those awful errors keep lurking in the back of my mind, and I wonder if I should have tried to contact her.

What do fellow authors and readers think? Let sleeping errors lie, or offer a hoping-to-help hand?.................

Leah writes stories of mystery and romance, good and evil and the power of love. She is a true grammar nerd who sometimes finds herself mentally diagramming complex sentences. Learn more about her work at her website. Or visit her on Facebook where she posts occasional tidbits about writing and life. (For more Bizarro, go here.)

An #OxfordComma Worth $5M

Back in the Dark Ages,  I used to teach English Language at college level in the U.K.  Yes, an American teaching English to the English may sound funny, but when I was handed papers that actually had “ad” instead of “had” and knew not the first thing about grammar, well, I had found my calling.  So you can imagine that I’m a pretty strict grammarian. Even now, in this Age of Enlightenment, I like my commas—especially the Oxford Comma. I even like semi-colons, and I always got a laugh when I opened one class for scientists with: “Thompson found, after being submerged in the solution for nine hours . . .” Ah, the misplaced modifier! But I digress.

Most of us have now seen the famous duo of sentences, ‘Let’s eat, Grandma,’ and ‘Let’s eat Grandma.’  The difference in meaning is glaringly obvious.  But with an Oxford comma, which comes at the end of a list, it might not be so obvious.  Someone working for Oakhurst dairy in Maine didn’t think that comma made any difference, but it did—to the tune of a $5M settlement.  Three truck drivers read that overtime would not be paid for time spent “canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of . . .” produce.  No comma at the end so it means one or the other, whereas the Oakhurst people had thought it meant both.  Smart truckers for noticing this!  The first court ruled in favor of the dairy; the appeals court ruled for the truckers and the above settlement has been reached.

Some authors now seem to think they can do away with commas altogether.  It amazes me because Word comes up with those squiggly green lines when you leave one out. Word doesn’t seem to have any mark to tell you when a semicolon is due—a semicolon separates two halves of the same thought in a sentence—but nowadays most authors seem to just write a separate sentence.  I regret that, but I understand I’m probably alone in this moan. The Chicago Manual of Style gives them a small section saying, “Though the semicolon is less frequently employed today than in the past, it is still occasionally used . . . ”

And what does the Chicago Manual of Style say about my beloved Oxford Comma?  Well, we’re in the United States and it says nothing.  Nothing! Yet there, at point 5.60, discussing lists, the Oxford comma is sitting pretty. “The carpenter’s saw, hammer, level, and so forth were found.”

If you’d rather listen to books than worry as you read about whether they have commas in the right place, hop over to either https://www.amazon.com/Lawless-Love-Lawmen-and-Outlaws/dp/B078KH5WPS/ 

or https://www.amazon.com/Dearest-Darling-Love-Letters/dp/B075D9M43X/

and give these two novellas a listen.