Eats, Shoots and Leaves
by Lynne Truss
I got this book only yesterday and am almost done with it. It's hilarious! It's for those of us who are sticklers for punctuation errors and the correct application of punctuations. Personally, I have been kept awake at night wondering how best to administer hyphens -- yes, they really are difficult to use. And, the greatest irony of all for me, is that my current company abolishes the use of hyphens in its style guide!! Ohhh I had a mild seizure when I saw that they can let a "29 year old" go un-hyphenated, and that hyphens are not "well placed". How can?!
I think doing editing for a while does that to you. Glaring spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors make me extremely annoyed...I have to stop myself from reaching for a pen to correct the errors I see. If I may illustrate with some anecdotes:
1) In my ex-ex-company, there is a sign on a door that says in all boldness "Please maintained the door open". An indignant copywriter angrily crossed out the offending "maintained" and wrote "keep" over it.
2) In my ex-ex-ex-company (anyone keeping count? Yes it's true, I did change quite a few jobs.
Blame it on my youth...), there was an engraved sign on the door of the auditorium "Please switch your pagers and handphones to silence mode". Everytime I see it I had to point out to everyone in my vicinity how offending it is, and eventually submitted it as a "Staff Suggestion" (these things are all the rage in the Civil Service). Finally Building Management kindly engraved a pair of makeshift inverted commas over the offending "silence". I was finally "silenced".
3) I was browsing the el cheapo classic DVDs at Carrefour and noticed that they can never spell "Humphrey Bogart" properly! There was a "Humfprey" and a "Humpry". What do they have against that guy?
Henceforth being the boh liao (nothing better to do), hao lian (show off) and self-righteous person that I am, I will start a series of "Language Watch" blog entries...partly to compensate for the cessation of the acclaimed (by me) "Cat Watch" series. (I hope the cats have got enough food...)
Of course we are not 100% guilt-free of making such atrocious mistakes; sticklers though we may be. That's what keeps editors employed.
by Lynne Truss
I got this book only yesterday and am almost done with it. It's hilarious! It's for those of us who are sticklers for punctuation errors and the correct application of punctuations. Personally, I have been kept awake at night wondering how best to administer hyphens -- yes, they really are difficult to use. And, the greatest irony of all for me, is that my current company abolishes the use of hyphens in its style guide!! Ohhh I had a mild seizure when I saw that they can let a "29 year old" go un-hyphenated, and that hyphens are not "well placed". How can?!
I think doing editing for a while does that to you. Glaring spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors make me extremely annoyed...I have to stop myself from reaching for a pen to correct the errors I see. If I may illustrate with some anecdotes:
1) In my ex-ex-company, there is a sign on a door that says in all boldness "Please maintained the door open". An indignant copywriter angrily crossed out the offending "maintained" and wrote "keep" over it.
2) In my ex-ex-ex-company (anyone keeping count? Yes it's true, I did change quite a few jobs.
Blame it on my youth...), there was an engraved sign on the door of the auditorium "Please switch your pagers and handphones to silence mode". Everytime I see it I had to point out to everyone in my vicinity how offending it is, and eventually submitted it as a "Staff Suggestion" (these things are all the rage in the Civil Service). Finally Building Management kindly engraved a pair of makeshift inverted commas over the offending "silence". I was finally "silenced".
3) I was browsing the el cheapo classic DVDs at Carrefour and noticed that they can never spell "Humphrey Bogart" properly! There was a "Humfprey" and a "Humpry". What do they have against that guy?
Henceforth being the boh liao (nothing better to do), hao lian (show off) and self-righteous person that I am, I will start a series of "Language Watch" blog entries...partly to compensate for the cessation of the acclaimed (by me) "Cat Watch" series. (I hope the cats have got enough food...)
Of course we are not 100% guilt-free of making such atrocious mistakes; sticklers though we may be. That's what keeps editors employed.
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