I was being a good boy this morning, reading the news, trying to keep up with world events. Then I started noticing the errors. I'm accustomed to little spelling, grammar and usage errors in the local paper - it's just a local rag. But I found these coming from AP:
"I think everyone is going to work every hard to find a common and unified position."
"It gets a little worst as the day goes on so we're hoping the early morning works out for us."
I'm no journalist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't reporters have a better command of the English language, that being both their tool and their stock-in-trade? Yes, I'm pretty sure that these errors were made by the reporters: the first quote was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the second was a NASA spokesman.
Okay, it looks like nitpicking. Okay, we all make mistakes. But between the reporter who should have a decent command of the language, spell-checkers, grammar-checkers and editors, I would expect a prestigious outfit like AP to drop the error rate pretty drastically, and I found these two errors among the first three articles I read.
Between things like this and the spelling/grammar/usage errors my son Alex relates to me from the message boards he hangs out on, I am beginning to sympathize with the French. Bring back the nuns! A few thwacks with an oaken ruler would improve the language skills of today's students.
"I think everyone is going to work every hard to find a common and unified position."
"It gets a little worst as the day goes on so we're hoping the early morning works out for us."
I'm no journalist, so correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't reporters have a better command of the English language, that being both their tool and their stock-in-trade? Yes, I'm pretty sure that these errors were made by the reporters: the first quote was British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the second was a NASA spokesman.
Okay, it looks like nitpicking. Okay, we all make mistakes. But between the reporter who should have a decent command of the language, spell-checkers, grammar-checkers and editors, I would expect a prestigious outfit like AP to drop the error rate pretty drastically, and I found these two errors among the first three articles I read.
Between things like this and the spelling/grammar/usage errors my son Alex relates to me from the message boards he hangs out on, I am beginning to sympathize with the French. Bring back the nuns! A few thwacks with an oaken ruler would improve the language skills of today's students.