English as she is writ...

[fajrdrako]

From World Wide Words:

An advertisement in the Racing Post of 9 July caught the attention of Simon Rowlands: "Editorial Internship at Racing Post. "It is essential that applicant's have a high standard of written English and excellent attention to detail."

World Wide Words is copyright (c) Michael Quinion 2011. All rights reserved. The Words website is at http://www.worldwidewords.org.

Comments

[badly_knitted]

I take a perverse delight in spelling and punctuation errors which occur in such places - it's sort of a form of Murphy's law: If you specify excellent spelling, there's going to be at least one spelling mistake in your ad!

[fajrdrako]

So very true! We see it often, and it's a joke that doesn't wear thin.

[ceruleancat]

If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written. Wiki calls it Muphry's law, although I've seen in under various names.

[fajrdrako]

Oh, so true! I have no moral high ground here at all. I know what it should be - most of the time, anyway - but I type haphazardly and proofread badly and sometimes the keyboard is out to get me. Then there's the brain-fritz problem when my normally decent spelling goes out the window. And when I'm tired, Muphry becomes my inseparable evil twin.

[ceruleancat]

Proving that they need someone.

[fajrdrako]

Perhaps it's a weeding out process _ they only consider people for the job if they comment on the error.

[ceruleancat]

That is actually a good idea.

Personally, proofreading depends on context. I frequently don't bother with typing in chats and stuff. I will glance at posts, but only seriously proofread fic, articles and of course when I'm in paid to.

[fajrdrako]

Yeah, me too. And it depends how busy I am, and how important the consequences of errors.

Sometimes I embarrass myself at work with errors in subject headings.