[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Fun with Apostrophes (LONG)

[Kathryn Cawte]

 Anne declared -
 
This is one of my pet peeves ... people working "the slot" (writing 
headlines for a newspaper's copy desk) who misspell words and use the 
wrong word (their/there/they're etc.) I am frequently appalled at the 
number and kinds of typos that appear in American newspapers. It 
makes me think that journalism schools will graduate pretty much 
anyone these days. I do recall when I attended J-school in the 
early '80s, we had to pass something called the J.U.T. (Journalism 
Usage Test) in order to get into the journalism program. The J.U.T. 
seemed, to me, to be basic 3rd or 5th grade English usage - but 
apparently some people had to take it more than once in order to pass 
it <shudder>.
 
Anne U
(frequent spelling Nazi)
 
Oh I am so with you on that. I nearly drove myself mad trying to explain to
one of my less literary friends why the Sun's headline of "Romeo, Romeo,
Whyfore art thou Romeo?" (after the birth of David 'Goldenballs' Beckham's
son) annoyed me so much. Although I admit that the majority of the Sun's
readership probably wouldn't have known that wherefore meant why and so
would have been confused, but mangling a quote, which would have been
perfect in its original form, really grated. 

The Independent has a column each Saturday where one of their writers
nitpicks that week's editions of the paper for grammatical and stylistic
errors. It's a good read - one of his pet peeves recently was the use of the
phrase "The Al-Qaieda terrorist group" (OK I admit I can't spell that).
Since Al means the anyway the 'the' is redundant.

K