Forum: Author Hangout

Wording & gramar errors

rustyken 🚫

I've been working on a story for several months. Since my writing is being done with multiple stops and starts, I've frequently been rereading what has been written. A part of this is driven by a negative review I received after publishing a book that had been on SOL for several years. While I likely won't publish it as a book, I do intend to put it up on SOL when it is complete.

The reason for my note is that some of the errors I've found are shocking. Shocking to the point, that I don't believe I created them. So is it possible that I bumped the keyboard and autocorrect created the error. Recently I've had issues with having my fingers in the correct position on the keyboard. That can lead to some interesting text.

So the purpose of this note is to vent a bit. Thanks for listening. ;-)

Replies: The Outsider Dinsdale Dominions Son jimq2 Grey Wolf rustyken ystokes

The Outsider 🚫

@rustyken

Unfortunately, as I'm sure you know, even decades later, you or others will continue to find errors...

"How the HELL did I miss THAT?"

Replies: tendertouch REP

tendertouch 🚫

@The Outsider

"How the HELL did I miss THAT?"

Gremlins. As soon as a part of the story is out of sight, they come along and replace 'their' with 'there', remove 'not' in odd places, 'whose' become 'who's', etc... Nope, no way I missed that!

REP 🚫
Updated:

@The Outsider

"How the HELL did I miss THAT?"

The problem is how we handle our oversights being pointed out by our readers. All too often, we call our reader a grammar nazi in our minds or, worse yet, in a reply message. Some of us refuse to accept our errors being pointed out to us as constructive criticism when the messages we receive are politely worded.

Replies: The Outsider tendertouch Rodeodoc

The Outsider 🚫

@REP

I'm my own worst enemy there... I AM a Grammar Nazi...

Replies: Crumbly Writer

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@The Outsider

I'm fairly pedantic myself, yet even I know better than to attack my fans for offering helpful suggestions, as there's no way that's ever going to work out well. As if any of us need any more 1-votes than we already have.

Plus, it's the most insecure in their own abilities who get the most offended, so throwing a hissy fit only worsens the readers' responses. So, if you don't want upvotes or ANY comments at all, then go ahead and piss in your readers' eye.

tendertouch 🚫

@REP

Some of us refuse to accept our errors being pointed out to us as constructive criticism when the messages we receive are politely worded.

This has always annoyed me. I try to be constructive if I have criticisms, but some authors get incredibly defensive.

Personally, I welcome feedback on my stories — either comments or direct messages. I also try to go back and fix things (though there's so much wrong with my first story that I'd really need to rewrite it, and I haven't got up the gumption to do that yet.)

Replies: The Outsider

The Outsider 🚫

@tendertouch

I USUALLY welcomed recommendations on how to correct and/or improve stories, but that depended on how those recommendations were worded...

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫

@The Outsider

Agreed, though I usually try to be polite when I reply (and I try to always reply to reader contacts.)

One reader contacted me and offered to edit one of my stories. Sounds good, so far. Then he said that I had this, that and the other thing wrong, and that I was missing the Oxford commas (see the other thread for my thoughts on that) and I had prepositions at the end of sentences (English isn't a Latinate language, but some people desperately want to structure it that way.) I don't often split infinitives, but I'm sure he would have whined about that, as well.

The kicker was when he told me that if he was editing for me then I would accept all of his edits, because they would be correct. For some odd reason I never got in touch with him again...

Replies: Argon

Argon 🚫

@tendertouch

Had one of those, too. Complained about multiple typos, grammar glitches and vowed he'd never buy a book from me again. Strangely, when I wrote back and asked him what errors and where, or even just a few examples, he clammed up, but then offered to edit my next book against a co-authorship if I would send it to him. Yeah, right! My head does not screw on.

Replies: Crumbly Writer

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@Argon

Just because someone has their own ideas concerning grammar and punctuation doesn't make them right. We hire editors based on their expertise and experience, not based on their pet projects and baseless wild excursions.

Anyone can claim to know something, yet when it comes time to back up those claims, still fall woefully short. I never minded volunteer editors, as everyone has their own particular strengths, even among editors, but I weigh someone's knowledge by counterweighting it by whether anyone else agrees with them or not. Loose cannons sink ships—typically your own.

I've had a few misadventures with editors in my time. Volunteer editors are often best, because they volunteer for a reason, wanting to help the overall story, not to push their own agenda. Which is why I gave up on professional editors a long time ago. (One massive failure was enough to never trust anyone's 'supposed' credentials again, as needed to 'rewrite' what they're editing is a bridge too far for any author.)

Rodeodoc 🚫

@REP

Grammar Nazi? I represent that remark. But I try not to rag on writers about it. If it makes the story unreadable I just move on. There's a new story on the list tonight that has 3 grammar errors in a two line intro. I won't bother reading it.

Dinsdale 🚫

@rustyken

Like the "gramar" in the title of this thread?

I was looking for an ancient Forum thread a couple of days ago, one of the contributions in that thread was from me and I was surprised to see an obvious - and uncorrected - error in there from all those years ago.
Luckily I can't find the thread now.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Dinsdale

Like the "gramar" in the title of this thread?

Is a gramar error when you impregnate your granny?

AJ

Replies: Bondi Beach

Bondi Beach 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Only if you didn't mean to.

Dominions Son 🚫

@rustyken

ou know, even decades later, you or others will continue to find errors...

"How the HELL did I miss THAT?"

I work in IT. I look at code that I wrote 5-10 years ago and think what idiot wrote that, oh that was me. :)

I also had an experience in college, where I spent several days looking for a missing ; in a C++ program. I couldn't find it and I was getting frustrated. I set it aside for a few days, not even thinking about it and as soon as I opened it back up, the spot missing the ; was staring me in the face.

Two possibilities:
1. Perspective, at the time you wrote it, you knew what you intended to write and when you look at it, you mind fills in what you expect rather than what's there. Set it aside long enough for your intentions to fade and your mind no longer covers the errors with your expectations.

2. An increase in skill. If it's been long enough, perhaps your writing skills have improved and the errors standing out to you in what you wrote before are a reflection of that.

Replies: tendertouch TheDarkKnight

tendertouch 🚫

@Dominions Son

I work in IT. I look at code that I wrote 5-10 years ago and think what idiot wrote that, oh that was me. :)

I think every programmer can relate. Not long before I retired I needed to revisit some code I wrote 25 years earlier. Cringe! Though I doubt anything I ever wrote was as bad as some of the things I saw that were written by engineers pretending to be developers — a 3,500 line long switch statement that was the key to an already complex engineering problem?

1. Perspective, at the time you wrote it, you knew what you intended to write and when you look at it, you mind fills in what you expect rather than what's there. Set it aside long enough for your intentions to fade and your mind no longer covers the errors with your expectations.

The part about setting it aside long enough is key here. DAMHIKT.

-tendertouch

TheDarkKnight 🚫

@Dominions Son

I work in IT. I look at code that I wrote 5-10 years ago and think what idiot wrote that, oh that was me. :)

One of the first things I learned in my career in computers is that it's easier to find errors in other programmers code than it is your own. I don't think its an ego thing, just a blind spot, maybe caused by cognitive dissonance.

Whatever the cause, the same thing happens when we are writing. I usually go through 3-4 drafts before I post something, but later on I often find things I missed.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

I don't think its an ego thing, just a blind spot

That's was my point. The human mind is prone to seeing what it expects rather than what is. It's easier to see what is when you don't have expectations for what should be.

jimq2 🚫

@rustyken

At least you were doing your programming on a keyboard. I was programming punchboards to sort punchcards.

Grey Wolf 🚫

@rustyken

I'm highly sympathetic to this topic :)

My current editing cycle is:
1) Write it
2) No sooner than a few months later (with rare exceptions), read and edit.
3) Send it to my editors (one at a time)
4) Once all editors have looked at it, shelve it again as much as possible.
5) Just before publishing, reread again, carefully making updates.
6) Fix the (fortunately, relatively few) reader-spotted issues, if any.

That last pass makes a surprisingly big difference, considering I've read the whole thing at least three times before that.

The exceptions to the model have to do with last-minute additions. Sometimes things pop up and have to go in, and those get less coverage by nature.

rustyken 🚫

@rustyken

Well I may have discovered part of my problem. The word processor's dictionary contains some misspelled words. Not sure how to fix that short of deleting the install and reinstalling. What a pain!

Replies: Dinsdale

Dinsdale 🚫

@rustyken

Wanna tell the world which wurd processor you use? If it had two dictionaries (standard and local additions) you could maybe get away with checking (or reinitialising) the local one(s).

Replies: rustyken

rustyken 🚫

@Dinsdale

It has two. One of them you can add words too. After I posted the message, I opened the dictionary and scrolled through. It doesn't contain many words and I found two misspelled words, which I deleted. In a few days, I will look again and more make an appearance. ;-)

ystokes 🚫

@rustyken

I am a silent grammar nazi for the most part. The thing that boggles my mind is that even with a number of editors and spell checkers there are still glaring mistakes that even a non-author like me finds.

What gets me is when you can tell that the author used a program to help write it but too lazy to read what was written.

Replies: awnlee jawking akarge

awnlee jawking 🚫

@ystokes

What gets me is when you can tell that the author used a program to help write it but too lazy to read what was written.

English is a spoken language as well as written. I've noticed that authors who use AI assistance for word choice or sentence construction often use words or sentences that are grammatically correct but native English speakers would know to avoid, as the authors might realise if only they had a real-life friend to read aloud what they had written.

AJ

Replies: Dinsdale

Dinsdale 🚫

@awnlee jawking

Some of the authors here are not native English speakers, and some of them are very good.

akarge 🚫
Updated:

@ystokes

I am a silent grammar nazi for the most part. The thing that boggles MY mind is that even with a number of editors and spell checkers there are still glaring mistakes that even a non-author like me finds.

What boggles my mind is that I notice a lot of those other people's mistakes (even those that have proofreaders) [I politely notify them] but then I get frustrated at how many of MY mistakes they notice, even years later.

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Forum: Author Hangout

Wording & gramar errors

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