Well, I did it again: led the Seven-Sentence Short Story workshop (created by science fiction and fantasy author James van Pelt) at a writing conference, this time, Wordbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. Here’s the story I …
It’s time for this year’s Kickstarter to fund Shapers of Worlds Volume V, the fifth in the series of anthologies featuring science fiction and fantasy by authors who were guests on my Aurora Award-winning podcast, The …
It takes money to publish books, and most of that money flows out the door before the book is released and sales begin, so my publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, is turning to Crowdfundr to help …
Shapers of Worlds Volume IV, the fourth anthology featuring authors who were guests on my podcast, The Worldshapers, is now available everywhere, including directly from Shadowpaw Press. Here’s a handy universal URL with links to …
My publishing company, Shadowpaw Press, has three great titles coming out in the first two months of 2024, all of them science fiction or fantasy. The first two, The Good Soldier by Nir Yaniv and …
Here’s another seven-sentence short story! I ran the workshop again at Ganbatte, an anime convention in Saskatoon. It went well, and here’s the one I created, again with the instructions, created by noted SF short-story …
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It just ain’t good English
I get very tired of seeing this particular grammatical error, from an ABC story: “After receiving a friendly reception at the church, more than 100 demonstrators chanted ‘Down with Bush’ from behind barricades a block away from the D-Day Museum, where Bush attended a fund-raiser.”
This says, of course, that the demonstrators received a friendly reception at the church before going on to chant anti-Bush slogans, rather than that Bush received a friendly reception at the church before going on to be chanted at.
Editors! Do your jobs!
End rant.
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2004/01/it-just-aint-good-english/
1 comments
Edward,
Asking editors to “Do your job!” won’t get much action in many publications’ offices. They’ve gotten rid of the editors. Many pubs now demand what we used to call “camera ready” manuscripts. Even if there IS an editor on premises, he or she may not be any more aware of grammar rules than the writers.
Hal Swift
Long-time broadcaster, never retired,
but often quit, and sometimes fired.
hal_swift@yahoo.com