I’m amazed I had any friends at Grant Wood Elementary School, because I honestly used to run around correcting people’s grammar. If this applies to you, here’s your apology. I cringe thinking about it.
Am I proud of the little voice in the back of my head that screams, “Even though using it as a noun is commonly accepted, even by Merriam-Webster, it’s not ‘a myriad of’ because myriad is an ancient Greek word that means 10,000 and you wouldn’t say ‘a 10,000 of.’ "? No, but there it is nonetheless. So – in a career move that would have surprised none of my teachers – I channeled it into a stint as a copy editor.
I sat down at my desk the first day and looked to my right. My friend Justin was taking a swig of coffee, alternating with (no joke) glugs of Mylanta straight from the bottle. He was all of 22 at the time, not 45. I like this place, I thought.
Everything can go wrong. Every word has the potential for a correction. Things you were sure you knew are wrong. You type fast and “assess” becomes “asses”. So it’s with a sense of sympathy and schadenfreude that I read the correction section. And for the past three years, I’ve clipped out my favorites. (Shut up.) The best one is something like: Due to a transcription error so-and-so director of “Happy Endings” said, “I love foreign films because of the dialogue” not “I love porno films because of the dialogue.”
Awesome, right? Who’s got a geeky hobby now? Still me? Ok. I accept your judgment.
Also, check out my new favorite blog, regrettheerror.com, which is where my favorite recent correction came from (And, yes, I sort of want to sit down with you and rehash the prepositions-at-the-end-of-sentences debate):
The Columbia Spector. April 17, 2008
CORRECTION: This submission misstates that one Dalai Lama admitted to having sex with hundreds of men and women while knowing that he had AIDS. Additionally, the submission misstates that many monks participated in the dismemberment of female bodies. In fact, there is no factual evidence to substantiate either of these claims. Spectator regrets the error.
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