Grammar Guru

[rpeate]

There is a certain freelance editor on Facebook who does very well, and good for him. He lives off his editing. He thinks he is a great editor, and others think he is a great editor. I do not think he is a great editor. I own a book he edited, and I found so many errors in it I could hardly believe someone paid him to edit it. He and I

Comments

[cacahuate]

Hey, whaddaya know-I agree with you on most of this!

Disagree on 5 and 8; semi-agree on 3 (setting it off with commas is fine if it’s her only book, but you need BOTH of them) and 7 (I think the “example...” style is also fine, but it needs a trailing space); agree on the rest.

[rpeate]

5. You disagree that the word means what it means? I suggest you look it up. However, the modern dictionary will likely have the new, perverted meaning, because dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive, as you are undoubtedly aware. I further suggest a dictionary from before 1970.

8. "Sentences" is plural. Something plural is not "one" reason but more than one.

3. You misunderstand me. We agree.

7. I was taught in school the spaces are needed. Since then standards have declined.

[cacahuate]

5. I think words mean what people at large agree they mean, and that it’s appropriate for dictionaries to be descriptive. Sometimes I do have a personal preference against a particular newly common meaning, and may advise against it, but this is not such a case, nor do I believe that in such cases my preference is somehow “correct.” (And supposing I did share your preference on “incredible,” I would echo cruiser’s point that this example is still arguably an appropriate use.)

8. Linking verbs must only agree with their subjects, not their complements.

7. Even if “...” is a lesser standard, there are still better and worse ways to execute it.

[rpeate]

5. I think it's appropriate for dictionaries to be descriptive too; again you misunderstand me. I also think it is appropriate for us to use descriptive tools when we investigate meaning. In this case, the dictionaries of yesterday and today will illustrate my point, which is that the meaning was and usually is being perverted. This is not a "preference". The meaning of a word has been twisted such that users of the word do not even know what the word they are using means.

8. Let me try again, with a simpler example. If I say, "Cars are a cause of pollution," I am being grammatically incorrect. If I turn it around, the error becomes more readily apparent: "A cause of pollution are cars." Perhaps you can see that is not correct? A grammatically correct construction may be reversed and remain correct. "A cause of pollution is car exhaust." Or: "Cars are among the causes of pollution." Nouns and verbs must agree.

[dimensionm]

Thanks for writing this post. It is something others can learn from. For my own part, I have made a couple of the mistakes on your list and now I know better (I'll decline to say which ones). Other items on the list make me cringe as well.

Online article writing tends to be terrible, I've noticed. I spot some of the most annoying grammar and spelling errors and it feels exactly like being in the presence of someone slowly scraping their fingernails down a chalkboard.

I will be the first to admit that I have room for improvement with grammar, but you would think people who get paid to write or edit for a living would at least not make such OBVIOUS and grating mistakes.

Fiction that contains errors is even worse because it completely pulls the writer out of the story.