The continued dumbing down in print media

EdFred said:
One could say the converse, and say that you have lost. So, you loose.
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OK, fine. But even your references acknowledge AP style guide as an exception. So if your 5th-grade teacher taught you the exception was the rule, she was wrong.
 
Lindberg said:
In American English yes. In British English, it's the opposite.
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ah yes. England and the USA... two countries separated by a common language.

edit: I can't claim credit for that... stole it from a co-worker in England.
 
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Lindberg said:
Negative. And anytime a style argument depends on the AP style guide, you've lost.
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Not if we are talking about the print media.

However, I wouldn’t disagree with you that AP changes it so often that it’s usually trash as a true “standard”. It’s variable populist crap.

But it’s what reporters are usually required to use.
 
denverpilot said:
Not if we are talking about the print media.

However, I wouldn’t disagree with you that AP changes it so often that it’s usually trash as a true “standard”. It’s variable populist crap.

But it’s what reporters are usually required to use.
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Except reporters who work for real papers.
 
bflynn said:
Just to be clear, your complaint is that they left an S out of his name? Or is there something else more subtle I’m missing?

Curtiss’ is the correct possessive form for a proper noun ending in S, at least according to my 5th grade grammar teacher.
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I would not necessarily assume it is the author. The publication staff sometimes make corrections if they think there is a spelling error.
 
Half Fast said:
In a technical paper, I once saw an editor “correct” the phrase “Kirchoff’s current law” to “Kirchoff’s present law.”
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On one of my aviation books, the editorial function for a later edition was farmed out to India. Use of English was excellent, but had no background in American idiom or anything mechanical. They changed "Old home week" to "Old home work," replaced the diagonals in all the tool sizes with a dash (e.g., instead of "9/16", "9-16"), thought the text needed to explain what the FAA was, etc.

I referred to my using a "GI Surplus knapsack" to carry a tiedown kit; you can guess what THAT got changed into....

Ron Wanttaja
 
3393RP said:
I received the new copy of Flying in today's mail, and the cover story is about Wipline and their floats. It's a good article, except for a glaring error.

The first couple of paragraphs discuss the first use of floats on an airplane, one of those being the float plane flown by "American aviation pioneer Glenn Curtis". Huh. Never heard of him. The author (or editor) compounds this folly by discussing "Curtis' pioneering flight".

The author is described a "an award winning author, business jet pilot, flight instructor, podcast host, and industry blogger". Noticeably absent from that brief CV are his qualifications as an aviation historian and the ability to properly use singular noun possessive rules.
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Could have been the editor's issue; always blame the editor. There are both spellings in my family tree, including that one Glenn guy.
 
As I noted. There are so many errors in print and online media, there is plenty of blame to go 'round.

I saw a piece yesterday where editorial changes to quotes in order to correct syntax issues introduced by publishing the quote were placed in parentheses instead of brackets.
 
Nearly 20 years ago I joined AOPA with the free 6-month student pilot intro promotion. When the six months expired, I continued my membership and selected "Flight Training" over "Flying". Still that way today. Even as a multi-rated CFI, I still prefer the "Student" version over the "Real" version.
 
I remember the glory days of Flying magazine -- the soaring poetry of Gill Robb Wilson; the "just-the-facts-Ma'am" reporting of Dick Weeghman; the humor of Frank Kingston Smith and later Gordon Baxter; and the early careers of such talents as James Gilbert and Richard Bach. With his innocent awe of flying and insatiable desire to educate himself to become a better pilot, Frank Kingston Smith stoked my passion for flying more than anyone else, rest his soul.
 
wanttaja said:
On one of my aviation books, the editorial function for a later edition was farmed out to India. Use of English was excellent, but had no background in American idiom or anything mechanical. They changed "Old home week" to "Old home work," replaced the diagonals in all the tool sizes with a dash (e.g., instead of "9/16", "9-16"), thought the text needed to explain what the FAA was, etc.

I referred to my using a "GI Surplus knapsack" to carry a tiedown kit; you can guess what THAT got changed into....

Ron Wanttaja
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What nutjob farms out editing a book written in English to someone in a country where English isn't the primary language?
 
kyleb said:
What nutjob farms out editing a book written in English to someone in a country where English isn't the primary language?
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I was a tad surprised myself, but it wasn't a decision that involved me.

The use of English by the editor was very good, it's just they had no experience with American idiom, and I suspect the class level that becomes editors over there probably had no experience in tool use.

My wife still laughs when reminded of the screams coming from my writing room when I was checking the proofs.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Pilawt said:
I remember the glory days of Flying magazine -- the soaring poetry of Gill Robb Wilson; the "just-the-facts-Ma'am" reporting of Dick Weeghman; the humor of Frank Kingston Smith and later Gordon Baxter; and the early careers of such talents as James Gilbert and Richard Bach. With his innocent awe of flying and insatiable desire to educate himself to become a better pilot, Frank Kingston Smith stoked my passion for flying more than anyone else, rest his soul.
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I have 3 of Smith’s books. Excellent stuff, great writer.
 
There is nothing like teaching somebody how to read that brings out all the exceptions in the English language. It really makes me wonder as I'm explaining these things.

"ou" <-- sounds like "OW", like, my foot just hit that COUCH.
"ou" <-- sounds like "UH", like, that's tough luck about your foot; and we couldn't have used an "F" in "tough"? No, had to use a "gh" and just explain that to everybody? I've had enuf.

Speaking of foot, is it UHT, or is it OOT, like my boot? Well friends, it's both, it just depends.

C is sometimes "KUH", and sometimes "SSS". WTF? Could we not have just lived with K and S? Were they not doing a good enough job? No, we had to have another letter that could do either job if one of them called in sick. How do you know which to use? You just have to memorize every word.

It's watching my son struggle to sound out these words that makes me wonder some days. He is saying them absolutely correctly according to "the rules" we've taught him. I let him sound it out; then I tell him that he pronounced that perfectly, but alas, we've found yet another exception to the rule in the English language. That "one" is actually pronounced "won". There is no reason for it; you just have to memorize it.
 
StevieTimes said:
There is nothing like teaching somebody how to read that brings out all the exceptions in the English language. It really makes me wonder as I'm explaining these things.
...
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I think it was Gallagher that had a whole routine about English words...
 
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