Editrix

Not Exactly a Typo, But . . .

Hitting "Reply All" instead of "Reply" can have hideous consequences.

Ah! So Close!

Cloche has alerted me to a typo in an e-mail that New York State Senator Michael F. Nozzolio sent to his "friends":

The Governor's budget still eliminates of $1.7 billion in property tax rebates and tax relief that are depended on by struggling seniors and middle class families.*

I can't help feeling a little bit bad for the guy. But, as Cloche said, "Ugh. No, thank you, Senator Nozzolio. You must have slashed the budget for your proofreaders in an effort to save us money." The sad thing is, that's entirely possible.

* I really wish I could tinker with this sentence: "The governor's budget still eliminates $1.7 billion in property tax rebates and tax relief that struggling seniors and middle-class families depend on."

Does Humanity Have a Beef with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?

I saw this at Salon this morning:

The heat is on Bill Gates
He now works to solve humanity's greatest problems with his foundation -- yet has no program to curb global warming. That does not compute

I had to read it three times before I could figure out that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn't one of humanity's greatest problems.

I Am 32 Flavors (of Angst) and Then Some

Yesterday evening, I cut the hell out of my thumb, got a splinter in my foot, discovered that Mr. L— had chewed up my favorite wooden spoon, drove in the snow to a class that had been canceled, and had your basic Gen Y what-am-I-doing-with-my-time-on-this-planet? meltdown. So forgive me if I take inordinate pleasure from what follows.

If you’re running Windows XP (as I do at work), and if you rest your pointer over the Recycle Bin icon, a description materializes: “Contains the files and folders that you have deleted.” Hovering over the My Computer icon brings up “Shows the disk drives and hardware connected to this computer,” and hovering over the My Network Places icon brings up “Shows shortcuts to Web sites, network computers, and FTP sites.”

Great.

But if you hover over the Internet Explorer icon, you get this: “Finds and displays information and Web sites on the Internet” There’s no terminal period, even though the other pop-up descriptions have them. (I know. I checked. I have no life.)

It’s such a small thing—such a pointless, barely noticeable thing—but when you’re in the middle of your third existential crisis in as many weeks, small things can become important.

Now excuse me while I dig out Living in Clip and craft earrings out of safety pins.

I Really Hope "Sexting" Doesn't Catch On

It just sounds so silly.

I Don't Know About You, But I've Got Tons of Stuff Saved on MY Computer

Yesterday morning, I was looking at Chicago’s questions and answers for this month, and I came across this:

Q. My colleagues are divided in their opinions about “storing data in a computer” versus “storing data on a computer.” Which is correct? Thanks.

A. You can do either, but I would store the data in the computer. It used to be easy to store stuff on a computer, but now with flat screens and laptops it tends to slide off.

I disagree. I’ve got a novel, eight stories, two spreadsheets, an electric toothbrush, a Fiesta Ware serving tray, and my entire summer wardrobe stored on my flat screen at home. In your face, Chicago.

No, seriously. I really disagree. If a colleague asks me where I saved a document, I might answer, “I saved it on the network. You can access it.” I save story drafts on my laptop, but my backups are on my flash drive. In the network, in my laptop, and in my flash drive sound strange to me, as does in a computer.

Thoughts?

Online Surveys & Market Research

Grammar Is Teh Hot!

Natalie McNeal, the author of The Frugalista Files, has alerted me this interesting Wikipedia entry. Its subject: the word teh. That's not a typo. To quote Wikipedia:

Teh is an English article based on a common misspelling of the. Originating from a common typographical error, this typo became a part of Internet slang and subsequently developed grammatical usages distinct from the.

"The spelling derived from a typographical mistake seen as the symptom of excitement," Wikipedia goes on to say, "much the same as the interjection of the numeral one between exclamation marks."

Teh is remarkably fluid. It can stand for an intensified version of the (e.g., "I am teh Editrix"). You can put teh in front of a verb to form what Wikipedia calls a "novel form of gerund" (though I'm not completely sure what that means), and you can put it in front of an adjective to (a) sound sarcastic and (b) give the adjective a superlative sheen (as in the title of this post).

I must say, I like teh, even though it's risen from misspelled text messages. It's the sarcasm it imparts that wins me over. It's not often you can reduce the number of words in a sentence, make an adjective superlative, and sling some sarcasm around by using just one little trick.

Now, I wonder if typing though instead of thought, or vice versa, will turn out to be the springboard for even more snarky slang someday.

ROFL!

I found this LOLcat at Bill Walsh's Blogslot.

 

apostrophree

Apparently, software that will correct "common errors of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and usage in blogs" is in development.* It's called apostrophree (lowercase a intentional), and according to its founder, John Scogan, it corrects (among other thing) there/their/they’re, affect/effect, and imply/infer mixups. "And missing or misplaced apostrophes abound [in blogs]," says Mr. Scogan."[T]hat's where our name comes from."

If it weren't for the fact that I'm more likely to misspell someone's name than confuse affect and effect, this software might put an end to the mug drawing.

Thanks for the tip, Helen!

*I'm glad I started this sentence with apparently, because as it turns out, this is all a hoax. (See the comment thread.)

Is Texting Ruining the French Language?

President Nicolas Sarkozy thinks so.

P.S.: Thirty-eight percent of American teens incorporate texty shortcuts, like LOL, into their book reports. To you teachers out there: have any of you encountered this phenomenon?