Picking nits: Psst! Don’t use ‘fanny’ in a headline!
Unless you want all the folks who speak British English to spit their coffee because, umm, fanny doesn’t mean buttocks to them. It means :::whisper::: female genitalia.
Ahem.
So imagine non-American-English speakers reading this headline on the front page of The Wall Street Journal the other day.
Modest Proposal: A Vermont Town Bucks Nakedness, Skinny-Dipping Spurs An Outbreak of Nudity; The Fanny-Pack Man
A man with a fanny-pack, no less.
Fanny issues might not be discussed much in, oh, The Economist, but they are discussed elsewhere.
But, hey. I bet one of the new bosses (you know, the ones from Australia?) might have an idea why using fanny in any context while trying to be serious might have the Brits laughing their arses off at the daft wanks, er, Yanks, who thought it was a good idea at the time.
Just sayin’.
Posted by Becky @
12:50 am |
Picking nit: Sometime it the small thing that count
Technical difficulties, apparently, with servers. I posted this Monday, then it disappeared. I’m putting it back up and hoping it stays. I’ll also try to piece together the comments … just so you know, if they look weird.
I need to learn how to back up my blog. Does anyone do this? What do you recommend?
This front-page, above-the-fold* gem went out to million of readers this morning.
The newspaper spend thousand of dollars on, oh, dozen of copy editors. Maybe there a severe shortage of letter s at the end of word.
*I had to laugh when I saw a reference to “above the fold” regarding online advertising, as in, “Our ad must appear above the fold.” Because, you know, blogs don’t “fold.” But it’s an old newspaper term and, I suppose, hard to let go. Sort of like “dialing” a telephone, even though it doesn’t have a rotary dial. Or “taping” a favorite show, even though the digital video recorder has no videotape.
What outdated terms do you find amusing?
Posted by Becky @
9:30 am |
Picking nits: Bumper sticker
Seen on a bumper last week: If you can read this, your too close.
Umm, actually? If I can read this, I’m close enough to correct you’re spelling.
Posted by Becky @
12:39 pm |
Picking nits: Snoozing on the copy desk
I count at least 10 things that cry out for correction. How many can you find?
Posted by Becky @
6:06 pm |
Picking nits: Using a dictionary
I gave my son his first dictionary today. Will it be my excuse to say, “Look it up,” when he asks how to spell something? Maybe.
But I could say it’s more along the lines of the “teach a man to fish” idea, one that says, “Teach a child to learn how to use a dictionary, and he’ll learn how to spell.” Whenever I asked how to spell a word when I was growing up, my parents said, “There’s the dictionary. Look it up.”
Will my son enjoy nitpicking like I do? Doesn’t matter, really. He’ll probably be good at something I can’t fathom, like physics or poetry. I only hope he learns to love words and to have fun with them. I hope he learns that spellcheck is nice, but it never beats a good ol’ dictionary.
Me? I still use my dictionary almost every day. I love to nitpick – 2. (figuratively) to correct minutiae or find fault in unimportant details; to kvetch – which some might say makes me an OK editor. Is where you place a comma or hyphen an unimportant detail? Depends on how perfect you want your copy. Co-workers used to threaten to make me a T-shirt with “Is anal retentive hyphenated?” on it. That was, ahem, a rhetorical question, but of course I had an answer.
So … I need to pick some nits.
Why do people still call female students co-eds (or coeds), an outdated term from the days they were the exception rather than the rule on college campuses? It’s not technically incorrect; it’s just annoying.
Lots of students have been calling since school officials announced Saturday night that a USF co-ed had meningitis. — “USF Officials Urge Calm After Meningitis Infects Student,” Josh Poltilove, The Tampa Tribune, Sept. 23, 2007
This was partly because his staff had told me to be prepared to discuss the recent arrest of a USC coed for the murder of her newborn infant (the woman’s lawyer had cancelled at the last minute) rather than my book “The Case for Hillary Clinton.” — “Elizabeth And Hillary,” Susan Estrich, Sept. 21, 2007
The Women’s Shelter of East Texas sees victims of all ages, but counselors know from national studies, young coed’s are a likely target. — “Nacogdoches Gang Rape Reported/Rape Prevention,” Donna McCollum, Sept. 20, 2007
P.S. Coeds doesn’t need an apostrophe.
“Fordham coed sues over bedbugs in hotel dorm,” Jose Martinez, New York Daily News, Sept. 21, 2007
“MIT coed with fake bomb ‘art’ arrested,” Glen Johnson, The Associated Press, Sept. 21, 2007
…
More than 1.5 million tourists now visit the arctic each year, up from one million in the early 1990s, according to the U.N. Longer and warmer summers keep arctic seas freer of ice flows, so cruise ships can visit places that were once inaccessible — raising other environmental concerns. — Arctic Becomes Tourism Hot Spot, But Is That Cool? by Gautam Naik, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 2007
Masses of floating ice are called floes. (I ain’t talking, “Mel, kiss my grits.”)
Kentucky Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher should have been a shoe-in for re-election this year. — “Kentucky Derby.” Jim Waters, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2007
An obvious candidate is a shoo-in.
…
Because I’m a nitpicker, maybe that’s why I get a kick out of Regret the Error, which posts ”corrections, retractions, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the media,” and Undercover Black Man’s MPB (Misidentified Black Person) posts. If you like to pick nits, check them out.
Posted by Becky @
10:30 pm |
