把Copyeditors和校对员带回
搁置一边报纸的大胆宽宏偏心和新闻操作的问题， 洛杉矶时报 真正地需要考虑再雇用它解雇存金钱的所有校对员和copyeditors。
这我在企业部分今天读的setnece ： “克莱斯勒关闭工厂，因为SUVs的非杂种版本的销售不足卖”。
销售…不足卖？ copyeditor可能容易地改变了那到取消建筑“销售的多余和极端愚蠢的言行的“慢”移动…不足卖”。
张贴由Grammar Guy
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0评论 新的趋向？ 基督徒科学显示器去网第一
基督徒科学显示器其中一张最平衡的报纸在国家，今天宣布它停止它的每日出版物并且交换到网第一项政策，当仍然出版每周印刷品编辑时。
许多观察员看移动作为未来的作先驱为多数如果不所有日报，丢失了广告收支对互联网和被迫减小和削减操作。
“判断根据越来越少的循环和收支数字，它似乎象( 显示器)这里没有一个选择， “对迈克尔Hanley，新闻事业一位助理教授说在球州立大学。
张贴由Grammar Guy
太一点的部门，太后
我们看。 它在抵押担保品和其他投机的金融证券发布的AIG (美国国际小组)无法报道保险，如此美国。 政府(读： 我们纳税人)必须付钱$90公司可能如此安定它的保险索赔和保持存在。
我们大概有所有听说在财政援救以后AIG举行的豪华撤退。 现在，我在今天读了这个标题 洛杉矶时报: “冷冻一些exec薪水的AIG”。
做他们怎么样支付奖金他们为uncoverable的所有得到了(读： 他们卖的伪造)保险？
张贴由Grammar Guy
Required Reading for Our Times: ‘The Great Crash 1929′
Though if I were to agree with an economist most times and overall, it would be Milton Friedman, on the advice of Mad Money host Jim Cramer, I just read The Great Crash 1929 by economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
I’m not one to read books about the dismal science in general, but Cramer’s advice definitely was timely, so after reading it, I too am recommending Galbraith’s book unhesitatingly. It’s a great read and highly enlightening.
Great Crash is written in a common-sense, common-person’s style that makes it a quick, engaging read. (I finished it off in about three hours or less.) However, you may want to look up the definitions of these words before reading it: usufruct, eupeptic and parthenogenesis. Otherwise, you’ll encounter clear, concise, simple writing.
I must confess that, after reading Great Crash, I now have a more liberal leaning on governmental intervention in the economy, as Galbraith makes it clear that easy steps could’ve been taken to ameliorate and end the Great Depression possibly while it was in its early stages. (Hint: Don’t balance the budget and keep money flowing.)
I found this passage on the next-to-last page of the book most illuminating for our current crisis:
"…it would be unwise to expose the economy to the shock of another major speculative collapse. Some the new reinforcements might buckle. Fissures might appear at other new and perhaps unexpected places. Even the quick withdrawal from the economy of the spending that comes from stock market gains might be damaging."
Might?
Posted by Grammar Guy
‘Jewel of Medina’ Doesn’t Reach Star Quality
Editor’s Note: Beaufort Books is the same firm that published O.J. Simpson’s "If" book, and The Jewel of Medina has been largely panned as featuring little more than second-class romance novel writing.
By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart
Reprinted courtesy of STRATEGIC FORECASTING
“The Jewel of Medina,” a controversial work of historical fiction by American author Sherry Jones, was supposed to have gone on sale Oct. 15 in the United Kingdom. A series of events, however, have delayed its British release indefinitely. The book, which went on sale in the United States on Oct. 6, describes the life of Aisha, the young girl who became the Prophet Mohammed’s third — and according to many sources, favorite — wife
.
Some Muslims have labeled the book blasphemous and have branded the author an enemy of Islam. An associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas at Austin said Muslims would find the book very offensive and, in an August interview in The Wall Street Journal, likened it to soft-core pornography.
Full Story »
Posted by Grammar Guy
Sign Seen at Mini-Mall: ‘$9 Two-Day Only’
Maybe I should’ve used scene instead of seen in keeping with the misspelling and misusage of two-day (I can only figure they meant today, right?).
Posted by Grammar Guy
Carina Chocano: Learn to Write to Audience or Quit
Let’s see. When I got my master’s degree in journalism, the standard was to write to a seventh-grade reader. Unfortunately, some journalists are now writing to impress their former professors, or themselves, in some kind of college esteem deficit syndrome.
Case in point: Los Angeles Times film critic Carina Chocano. Her reviews read like a college paper (I’ve been a university instructor since 1995) out to impress with convoluted sentences and words to impress academics and turn off the reader.
Just tell me if the movie is any good or not. I don’t care about your college hang-ups, Carina.
Take this example: Today, she wrote what was called "An Appreciation" for Paul Newman, who just died. Check this sentence:
"What is ‘Cool Hand Luke’ if not a polyamorous bromance writ large?"
Bromance is not a word to be found in the dictionary, so it’s either a typo or some kind of Hollyweird lingo that needs a parenthetical explanation. Polyamarous, meaning sleeping with many, is fine, but seventh graders won’t understand it, though one’s former profeessors might be impressed.
In short, remember your audience, Carina, and quit trying to impress those who don’t count (though you may be thinking it impresses the people who pay your bills, but I hope not–are they sensible?).
Is there any wonder the Los Angeles Times and all newspapers are in trouble.
Remember your audience. Write to communicate, not to impress.
Posted by Grammar Guy
Sink, Sank, Sunk: Story of the L.A. Times
The first people to go at newspapers when shrinkage occurs (which is quite frequent these days) are the proofreaders and copyeditors, those who are charged with making sure that correct English appears in print.
Though the Los Angeles Times is usually pretty good on the correctness front, I came across a sentence Saturday (Sept. 20) that misused a form of the verb to sink, to wit: "Meanwhile, shares of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs sunk as investors bet they would collapse…."
I still remember from probably the third grade memorizing the base forms of this verb as "sink, sank, sunk," so without a modifying verb–and using just the simple past tense–the authors of this article could not have used sunk, though they did.
I chalk this one up to a) sloppiness and b) stupidity rather than hiring and firing policies, which, sadly, is worse than the latter.
Posted by Grammar Guy
Jack Kerouac II: One Passage Gets It Right
No one called me out for saying that Jack Kerouac was not a beatnik (capital b?), which he really wasn’t since he spent most of his 47 years living with a) his aunt, b) his mother and c) his briefly wed wives. He did, however, hang out with people who could be called beatniks (B? again), but mostly he was a drunk who eventually died from wounds inflicted in a barroom beating that he endured.
Now, I don’t have the time or space to go into an exegesis of On the Road, which is at any rate a largely rambling and disconnected piece of literature (nor would I consider myself qualified to do so), but from my reading of the manuscript in the Penguin Classic edition, one passage seems to have answered Kerouac’s journeylong quest for God and truth, though it’s just buried on page 173 when he passes a fish-’n'-chips joint and fraeks out the female owner:
Posted by Grammar Guy
Jack Kerouac: Definitely Not a Beatnik
As I prepare for my upcoming Route 66 catharsis, or journey to discover my roots (something I should’ve done 40 years ago, not now), I’ve been reading all the "road" books I can find, including On the Road by Jack Kerouac.
One of the great ironies of American literature–and history–is that Kerouac is regarded as the progenitor of the Beatniks, which is about as far from the truth as possible.
Kerouac was a Catholic who dabbled in Buddhism and throughout it all was a William F. Buckley type of political conservative. He wore no beard and no jeans but did smoke tea, as he called marijuana–and of course, drank a lot.
When he referred to the Beat Generation, he described its inhabitants as being "beat up and beat down"–in other words, a generation that had been pushed under and asunder and dealt severe blows, socially, psychologically and financially. He even equated being "beat" with "Beatific." In other words, when you’ve been "beat up and beat down" enough, you become angelic. You’ve aspired to one of life’s highest realms by virtue of your suffering.
Now, this is all a far cry from the Beatniks and Hippies and the reckless doping and abandonment with whom and with which he’s been mistakenly identified.
Stay tuned for more on Kerouac–and a bit after that, details on my own journey on the road.
Posted by Grammar Guy
