Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Editing the World

What are we saying? With the accelerated pace and endless flow of communication, we're bound to make lots of spelling and grammar errors. (You may find some right here!) But, based on much of what I'm reading, I'm afraid we're just getting too lazy to use our language correctly. After all, it has never been easier to access dictionaries and style manuals. So...when in doubt, look it up!

Here are just a few of the strange and interesting things I have read lately:

"...a little bit taken back." Well, no. The phrase is "taken aback."

"...as best as I can." (This was used twice in the same paragraph.) Sorry, the correct phrase is "as best I can."

"I ultimately realized that I had to being to live to have such a family." Huh? Did you mean, "begin to live"? Okay, this was clearly a typo, and since "being" is in fact a word, spell-checker wouldn't catch it. (Actually, spell-checker didn't like "wouldn't" so much...or "didn't" either!)

"Now, imagine this problem exasperated by greater lengths of time and larger amounts of capital added to the equation." I think he meant "exacerbated," and I'm not sure I should trust his investment advice.

"Thanks for the clear and aerodide view of so many vital and manual jobs." Let's see...aerodide? The prefix "aero" means "air." So far, so good. Now for the "dide" part. Well, the Urban Dictionary gives one definition as, "When you are dyslexic and cannot type the word Died correctly." So, does "aerodide" mean "dead air"? Oh, wait. Did you mean "erudite"?

I'm beginning to think everyone has read Anguish Languish...and thinks it's a thesaurus! "Yore tucking lichen end-bustle!"