07-09-2012, 09:09 AM | #1 | ||||
Wizard
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I thought my Eglish was bad...
I am reading some documentation from a vendor that is trying to do business with us. Top give you an idea of the intend audience for this document, I work at a university with 95k students. This vendor is trying to get in to do business with us. In their docs they have jewels like:
Quote:
Quote:
And then there is this sentence that gives the reason to import data: Quote:
Quote:
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07-09-2012, 09:17 AM | #2 | |
Close to the Edit!
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Quote:
(Sorry, couldn't resist...) |
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07-09-2012, 09:18 AM | #3 |
Wizard
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07-09-2012, 09:49 AM | #4 |
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I've run across this from fortune 500 companies and so called PHD's too, both of which should be English experts. One lady who signed with my publisher, a PHD as mentioned, wrote a book that was probably 20k in length and contained some 2k typos and some of the worst grammar I've seen in ages. The best part was, she refused to have her book edited claiming "I'm a PHD. I don't make mistakes!" lol.
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07-09-2012, 10:01 AM | #5 | |
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Quote:
And then, of course, it doesn't get proofed before being sent off, because nobody in the marketing department is a designated proofreader, and the people in the documents department (1) are busy on other things and (2) aren't supposed to see docs they're not cleared for. Also, when something *is* handed to them, they're often not given instructions--they're told "format this according to our styleguide," and not "check for errors." Or they're told to check for ALL errors, including facts, and they have no idea whether the turnaround times are accurate or if that chart copied from the 1998 sales report is useful, so they shrug, fix the margins, and PDF the thing without looking at the text. It's not that the people writing the proposal are illiterate; it's that it's written by committee, spread out over some time, and never read through as a final document before being sent off to a client. Sending it back full of proofreader's marks could be an entertaining exercise, if you've got anyone who wants to burn the time on it. |
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07-09-2012, 10:34 AM | #6 |
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Would you like me to correct the typo in your Title?
Perhaps it's for dramatic effect........? Don (Moderator) |
07-09-2012, 10:49 AM | #7 |
Wizard
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07-09-2012, 11:58 AM | #8 | |
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07-09-2012, 12:09 PM | #9 |
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...but yes I agree with you.
Many years ago I saw an advert from a company who sold word processing software and their advert had a typo on roughly every third line ! I replied to them in kind, asking why they didn't run their advert through their own Spell Checker ! Also I have noticed that the cheaper eBooks appear to have been proof read by people whose first language is not english, and learnt the language by listening rather than writing it. e.g. "given" instead of "giving"........"wages" instead of "wagers" (that was on 2 consecutive lines so not a typo) ...and I plead old age and poor eyesight for my own tipos... |
07-09-2012, 04:51 PM | #10 | |
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Quote:
Sometimes that's more a result of local dialect than actual typos. I've quite often caught myself using wrong words in a sentence simply because that's how it's spoken locally, proper grammar and enunciation be damned. For example, around here it's extremely common to hear people say "fer noth'n" instead of "for nothing". Even I do that. So to me some typos are expected. Most aren't, but when you toss in a variable like dialect, all bets are off. |
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07-09-2012, 08:44 PM | #11 |
cacoethes scribendi
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07-10-2012, 10:30 AM | #12 |
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07-10-2012, 10:53 AM | #13 |
The Dank Side of the Moon
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I kinda like it teh way it is.
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07-10-2012, 06:23 PM | #14 |
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07-10-2012, 07:21 PM | #15 |
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Oh, come on folks. Give us a beak.
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