In my early days as a Courier News reporter, the copy desk was a mighty force. One "it's" instead of "its" from a reporter would curl the lip of a copy editor. "Thier" for "their" or "you're" for "your" drew scorn even as the editor graciously fixed the errors. Copy editors had vast amounts of general knowledge and also kept dictionaries and other references close at hand.
Woe betide the reporter who did not check spelling, grammar and style before sending copy to the desk.
Later on, there was one copy editor in particular who did not have broad cultural knowledge and insisted Kwanzaa was not a word. Her dictionary only showed kwanza, an Angolan coin, and I had a hard time convincing her Kwanzaa was celebrated in Plainfield (this was before Hallmark started selling Kwanzaa cards). But most copy editors were the final arbiters in correcting reporters' work.
Now that news organizations are as flat as a flounder and functions such as copy editing are done from remote central locations, the once hard, gem-like flame of the copy desk has sputtered. Headlines and cutlines under photos are becoming somewhat slapdash. Reporters do not write headlines or cutlines, but because they are the living embodiment of the news organization in the towns they cover, they are liable to catch hell for errors such as "commerical," "wonded" and "vengance," all seen recently in local online news.
With copy floating around like flotsam and jetsam in some computer somewhere, it is also not surprising that an article first published online locally on Oct. 27 has appeared again on Nov. 3 and again today.
Bloggers must necessarily be their own copy editors and I have cringed sometimes at finding typos in old posts of mine. Dan had a bit of a howler today when he left the "f" out of "shifts."
But maybe it doesn't really matter any more. Many headlines could read "WTF?" or "OMG!" and young people wouldn't mind. Even vowels are obsolete in texting. Maybe to make news fit on a Blackberry, such shortcuts may become acceptable.
The change in standards is not just something that surprises me. Click here to see what some others think. And what do you think?
--Bernice
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I, too, cringe when I see typos in my writing--my credibility is at stake, especially with students who call me out on my typos. I adjust my language depending on the forum I am writing in. For Facebook, "WTF" or "OMG" are sufficient when my beloved NY Jets screw up on plays. When I use text messaging, I sometimes use shortcuts because of the character limit. However, when my students email me about school work, I do insist that they spell out words and use proper punctuation. I have thus far resisted the impulse to add comments such as "LMAO" or "WTF" on their papers when I am grading. LOL.
ReplyDeleteRebecca
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's a simple matter of pride. Whether I'm writing the lede to a front-page story or a pithy comment on the social-news website of which I am a loyal member, I always try to make sure my ducks are in a row when it comes to grammar and spelling. I owe it to all the English professors at Rutgers who taught me so much about the craft, if nothing else. -Mark
ReplyDeleteLast sentence of the third graf, by the way, reads "reprters' work."
ReplyDeleteI still cringe at the usage of the words "went missing" or "gone missing"
ReplyDeleteIsn't it "is missing"? That never would have passed the muster in my high school English class.
Bernice, it is t hat damn computer's spell checker's fault. Even yours misses see today "reprters' work."
ReplyDeleteI too cringe when I see copies of what I thought was perfect error free letters that I have sent.
At least mpst of us can spell better than George Washington could.
Thanks to 9:51 p.m., who caught the "reprters'"
ReplyDeletetypo.
Lighten up it's (as in it is) not that serious.
ReplyDeleteOkay up for debate: Why is okay to use FBI, UCLA, IRT [from the old Hair song], but typing LOL, IIRC [if i recall correctly] makes people cringe ??
ReplyDeleteSomehow the phrase "do as i say, not as I do" seems to be useful here.
ReplyDeleteBoth of my paying writing gigs try to get us to keep to AP Style. One has a standard SEO format for the "headlines," while the other encourages us to make our own and love lowercase.
ReplyDeleteI too cringe when I see a typo or, more often, an entire word either repeated or left out in my own writing. I sometimes take a few liberties with writing (hey, I'm a blogger and TV reviewer, not a reporter!), but I can't recall the last time I used LOL, ROFL or any of those. The worst I do is the occasional emoticon on Facebook.
;-)
Or on Blogger.
I see SO many typos and errors in the Star Ledger online that I cringe for them.
When I was a reporter there were many times I used unprintable words to describe my 'affection' for my copy editor. Now every time I read any print media I long for those days. Like most of the writers who have responded, I suffer from nightmares about typos and other grammatical errors.
ReplyDeleteBernice, you're the best. It's these kind of posts that keep me reading.
ND