A pet peeve of mine and immediate score zapper is when an author not only misuses a word but copies the mistakes of others as proper.
Example: in BDSM stories the abbreviation dom is thought to be dominate. Dominate is a verb whereas dominant is an adjective. The Dominant's toy is dominate(d).
Other misuses -
• Shutter instead of shudder
• Collage student instead of College student
And on and on. Arrrgh!
in BDSM stories the abbreviation dom is thought to be dominate. Dominate is a verb whereas dominant is an adjective. The Dominant's toy is dominate(d).
And it can't be an abbreviation for both (which depending on the context) why?
the abbreviation dom is thought to be dominate
I thought it was "domination."
It could also be "discipline."
It could also be "discipline."
How would you ever get "dom" from discipline"? What language would I have to translate it to for that to work out correctly?
How would you ever get "dom" from discipline"?
I didn't. I got it from the "D" in BDSM.
Bondage/Discipline, Sadism/Masochism
or
Bondage/Domination, Sadism/Masochism
But BDSM is not my thing so I have no idea.
ADDED:
I was going to write a "big dick" story when I thought BDSM stood for "Big Dick Sells Many."
D and S in BDSM also stand for Domination and Submission which by themselves sometimes is abbreviated D/s. In that sense the D in BDSM can stand for Dom which may be an abbreviation of Domination. The female dominant is sometimes abbreviated Domme with the male as Dom.
I didn't. I got it from the "D" in BDSM.
Bondage/Discipline, Sadism/Masochism
or
Bondage/Domination, Sadism/Masochism
But BDSM is not my thing so I have no idea.
Actually it's a three way mashup, both the D and the S are overloaded.
Bondage/Discipline
Domination/Submission
Sadism/Masochism.
Using "here, here" instead of "Hear, Hear".
A regular error made on SOL even when there are good editors, which is surprising.
A regular error made on SOL even when there are good editors, which is surprising.
Homonyms and Homophones are typically easy to miss, since we all tend to read what we expect (building on the recently raised idea that readers 'fill-in' the majority of words when reading). What's more, particular authors tend to mistype the same mistakes, not just because they don't know the difference, but because of muscle memory (as we type rapidly, we reply more on rote memory of motions than on our knowledge of words).
That's no excuse for errors and typos, but it helps explain how so many people can all overlook the same thing. It's amazing how few editors will identify when I accidentally use the wrong name for a character (transposing a name from another story, perhaps).
Again, I simply reminder will often get each error fixed in the entire document. Repeated reminders might even get them to put in on their 'check before submitting new stories' list. :-)
What's more, particular authors tend to mistype the same mistakes,
And automatic spelling correction software causes many of the problems.
And automatic spelling correction software causes many of the problems.
In my case, auto-corrections are relatively easy to identify, homonyms or muscle memory miscues are harder to decipher/solve.
Homonyms and Homophones are typically easy to miss, since we all tend to read what we expect (building on the recently raised idea that readers 'fill-in' the majority of words when reading).
I always look at the sound if a word looks wrong - often works but ...
That's no excuse for errors and typos, but it helps explain how so many people can all overlook the same thing.
It is a nightmare trying to find errors in your own text, perhaps because you know what should be there. Even when I had documents checked by colleagues they found some and missed some.
Again, I simply reminder will often get each error fixed
Oh, yeah! ;-) so easily done.
Even when I had documents checked by colleagues they found some and missed some.
Which is why professional editors are far too expensive for anyone posting stories here to afford.
Even when I had documents checked by colleagues they found some and missed some.
Which is why professional editors are far too expensive for anyone posting stories here to afford.
I couldn't use outsiders or junior staff because these were thick confidential legal documents worth a lot of bucks. We were also up against tight time limitations, ghosters, the lot
(ghosters - doing a 24+hours shift straight off)
I couldn't use outsiders or junior staff because these were thick confidential legal documents worth a lot of bucks. We were also up against tight time limitations, ghosters, the lot
When I was working, I had an old college friend/English major who'd double check my work. Unfortunately, we lost contact after that.
Which is why professional editors are far too expensive for anyone posting stories here to afford.
Professional editors can have additional costs. It was well that one of my book editors was about 1000 miles away, or I might have beaten her to death with a math book. Even when all my peer technical reviewers told her that she was wrong, she insisted that I should have said "quadrupled" when I wrote "increased by two orders of magnitude." (For the nontechnical, each order of magnitude is a power of ten, so it increased by a factor of 100)
It took intervention by the executive editor to get her to back away. Were I more into BDSM or pain, I suppose the episode might have been more motivating to think of things to do to her. Alas, when I met Ilsa, She-Bitch Editor of the Macmillan Publishing Gestapo, she was extremely mousy.
It is a nightmare trying to find errors in your own text, perhaps because you know what should be there. Even when I had documents checked by colleagues they found some and missed some.
That's why it's always best never to rely on a single proofreader. Everyone misses some things, especially common misperceptions.
Using "here, here" instead of "Hear, Hear".
A regular error made on SOL even when there are good editors, which is surprising.
They could be calling a kitty. Or summoning somebody from behind obscuring obstacles.
Using "here, here" instead of "Hear, Hear".
"Here, here" is becoming very common, and not just on SOL. I suspect that it will become accepted as correct eventually by sheer weight of numbers, particularly in the US. Another that is gaining popularity is "Hear! Hear!" which is also not 'correct'. The 'correct' form is "Hear, hear!".
