I’m having a hard time reading anything lately. It’s not that the words are starting not to make sense, but the people writing them sure are.
I have two examples.
The novel through which I am currently slogging is a murder mystery by Anne Perry. Sarah and I both enjoy her books and we took a few out of the library the last time we were there. But this one (The Sins of the Wolf) has been frustrating, due to a seeming lack of an editor.
In one scene the lead character, Monk, admits a colleague to his office, offers him a seat, and then sits also. Only then Monk’s standing by the fireplace with one foot on the fender. But then he has to stand up to see his guest to the door.
In another we spend a little time with the family of the deceased (it’s a murder mystery, after all). In this one a character who was earlier introduced as the daughter in law of the victim is suddently daughter, then daughter in law, back to daughter, and finally daughter in law. Which isn’t so bad, I suppose. Except that which brother is her husband also changes once!
Details are important when one is trying to pick up on clues throughout. I think, anyway.
The second example is a Time 100 profile of Steve Jobs on cnn.com.
There is a brief stumble in the opening paragraph due to a missed word, ‘later.’ I was almost willing to forgive this one because this site churns out so much text that the occassional mistake is inevitable. But later in the text we have a quote from a former Apple employee named Larry Tesler. Or is it Telser? It’s hard to tell, since it gets spelled both ways.
Going beyond little spelling problems, the article also has some facts wrong(!). This is CNN. The self-proclaimed leader in American news. Near the end of the article they mention the 2001 introduction of the iPod, ‘an MP3 player that works with both Macs and Windows-based PCs.’ While that’s certainly true now it wasn’t in 2001. Windows support for the iPod didn’t come until iTunes was released for that OS in 2003. (Well, official support, anyway; there was an open source application to offer limited support for Windows users pretty much right away.)
While still talking about the iPod and iTunes, the article goes on to say that, ‘The iTunes Music Store also marked the first time that Apple developed software for Windows.’ Ambiguities aside, it’s also wrong. I certainly can’t think of many other applications, but QuickTime has come in a Windows version since v2.1 in June 1995.
I freely admit to making occasional mistakes when I write. And sometimes I just fire something off without proofreading. Even still, things slip through. I get made fun of by my family and/or friends and move on. But I don’t write mystery novels. And I don’t write for CNN.
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The very first ever item off my personal wish-list came in the mail today. Pat the mum-in-law bought this T-shirt for me from jinxhackwear.com.
I look so good.
Image removed during February 2007 redesign.
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I’ve been so busy of late that I haven’t had a chance to write anything here. And I don’t really now, either. But I’m between tasks, and have discovered that people are still checking to see if I’ve updated.
So that’s what this is: a gratuitous update.
Not much else is new. The mother-in-law is in town. A big job I’m working on is almost a week past due (since not all the material is in yet). The Artichoke issue I’m working on isn’t due until the end of May. Stuff like that.
Oh well. Back to helping tidy up for the baby shower tonight, then.
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