3 posts tagged “standards”
Okay, this one isn't really a spelling/grammar/etc thing, but it's still the result of not proofreading:
On [technology is good]:
"Vista: Not Going Anywhere
At least not until 2010. Read what D has to say about Vista misconceptions and what's in store for Windows7."
From what I understand... there's supposed to be a link in there somewhere. But, as they haven't A: changed or B: fixed the error on the News & Politics change since that first post with a list of [_____ is good] errors, I have a feeling that the rest of Vox will never know what D has to say about Vista misconceptions & Windows7. Unless, of course, we realize that we don't have to rely on the tech is good page to spoonfeed us, and we actually do a little work to find said post.
In other news, yesterday was definitely the best Fourth of July to date. Last year, I was on a plane to Italy, so I spent my Independence Day 2007 on a very.long.flight. in an aisle row next to a man who needed to get up every ten minutes to use the restroom and behind a man who felt the need to lean his seat back as far as humanly possible in an apparent attempt to crush my kneecaps into a billion pieces/just ignore the fact that I had kneecaps to begin with. The year before, I somehow ended up at a very lame, lame party thrown by someone my parents knew, away from all of my friends, with pretty much no one to talk to, bored out of my skull. So this year didn't have a lot to live up to in comparison with the past two years.... but I do remember, before 2006, having a nice 4th of July every once in a while. SO - The point is that this one definitely topped all of those pre-2006 4th celebrations.
The boy and I left kind of early in the morning to get fireworks and then headed to where our friends were getting ready to go boating. We met them there and went swimming/ate while waiting for the people with the boat to get there, and then went we all went tubing for a while... I have 28 new bruises from tubing alone, but it was ridiculously fun .... and some people went wakeboarding and kneeboarding - I didn't, and there were a few others who just watched as well, but even watching everyone else was a lot of fun :) p
After that we went to his parents' house, ate dinner and set off some fireworks there, and then met up with three friends who had also been with us boating earlier to watch fireworks in the same general area where we were earlier in the day tubing and everything. We couldn't find them at first but eventually did, and we all sat on one of the docks watching the fireworks, which were actually really impressive.
The whole day was so much fun :)
Hope everyone else had a great 4th too!
"Recipe | Mom's Mandarin Orange Cake
Mah shows you how to make her mother's famous mandarin orange cake, also know as "the best cake for summer."
aaaaaaaaaaaagh.
"...also know as..."
I believe that was supposed to be "...also known as..."
aaaaaagh.
* side note: Mandarin Orange Cake sounds so.yummy.
Okay, so my title is not *quite* as catchy as "be kind rewind"...but it gets the point across.
Moving on...
I love reading the "______ is good" pages on Vox. The posts that are spotlighted are really the best and most interesting posts on Vox, and it's great to see what everyone's talking about. However, I was a little disappointed today for the following reasons:
On "[culture is good]" :
"Remembering George Carlin
In memory of George Carin, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 71..."
"In memory of George Carin...." The confusing part is the fact that .000001 seconds ago, the subject was George Carlin and now we've moved on ....to someone with an eerily similar (but not quite identical) name?
A quick once/twice/thrice-over to check for mistakes like this wouldn't hurt.
On "[music is good]":
"On the Right Track
Whenever Erwinizm starts to feel down, he turns to these songs for a little pick-me-up. If you're looking for a some musical inspiration you've come to the right spot!"
Or he/she was trying to say "awesome musical inspiration" and those two missing letters were even sneakier and ran away, leaving behind only confusion and that poor little "a" that they meant to take with them.
On "news & politics":
"The Way the World Sees America
JudgeBob
says that liberals say the world "hates America for its imperialism and
consumption of resources," but argues that this is not, in fact, the
truth. Learn why the thinks the international community love what American represents."
"Learn why the thinks..." No no no. Again, proofreading makes all the difference, Vox.
On "[technology is good]":
Review | Netflix Home Video Box
"Oregonkc bought and set up the Netflix home video box. Find out what he think about the price, content, quality and setup..."
"Find out what he think..." Also a "no no no" situation. We fixed the "the" issue (it's actually a "he" now, thank you for getting it right that time), but that "s" missing from the end of "think" is actually necessary, believe it or not. If you could put the "s" in the above example ("learn why the thinks"), you can put it here too.
This kind of thing happens to everyone. We forget to look over what we've written and send it to "print" or "save" under the impression that it's "done". And that's okay sometimes. If you're writing a Post-it to yourself, feel free to completely ignore all rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I'm not going to complain about something like that. However, this is a bit too similar to a few months ago, when I walked into a JCPenney dressing room and saw an ad for the JCPenney Salon:
<<The close-up: "Mean's you'll get a look...". No, JCPenney! Just no! That stray apostrophe in "mean's" isn't supposed to be there. It's just taking up space.
It's about professionalism, and maintaining some kind of standard to separate yourself from the run-down stores on the side of the road with letters falling off of the sign (There used to be a hotel near where I live - a Ramada. Over time the letters fell off of the sign and it became the Ram-da, the Ram-a, the Ram, and finally just the Ra. For the longest time, every time I passed that hotel, I wanted to sing "Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the Ram in the Rama lama ding dong?"). In Vox's case, it's maintaining the standard to separate yourself from the average MyFace profile (yes, I did mean to say MyFace - a term a friend and I came up with to refer to social networking sites as a whole rather than separately. Also: Spacebook.) or blogger without a care.
If the words you're writing are going to be displayed on a sign in stores across the country, or on the front page of a website that has a pretty high volume of visitors every day, for the love of all that is holy in grammar and punctuation handbooks / style guides, PROOFREAD.
Really Vox, if you need someone to proofread... don't be shy. Ask someone. Hey, you can ask me. I like proofreading. I'm odd like that. I consider proofreading "fun". A hobby. It doesn't have to be me, though. Anyone. As long as you have someone preventing things like this from happening in the future. That would be great. Thanks.