Salve for Souls

Monday, January 26, 2015

Blubs and Sea Lion Steak

The grammar police are out to get me! Chief of these is my husband, Dan, whom I call Ol' Eagle Eye. He can spot a grammatical error from a mile away and he will pounce on it.

That's a good thing for me as a journalist and novelist, because I've made my share of errors and Dan edits my work. In great part, Dan attributes his sharp eye, to English being his second language. He spoke Spanish until he entered school in New York City and had to familiarize himself with the many nuances of the English language.

 He can understand why another Spanish-speaking person mistook the word "canopy" for "cannot pee and "sirloin steak" for "sea lion" steak. Learning English and wanting to get it right, made Dan acutely aware of inconsistencies, mine included.

In a book proposal I wrote, he spotted the following typo. "A 100 word blub follows," instead of "A 100 word blurb." In something else, he found hand crotched instead of hand crocheted.

Some entrees in this blog will feature errors Dan discovered in my work and how they were corrected, as well as errors in general. There will also be things of interest to writers and maybe a few laughs in the process.

But whether it's for a job application, a term paper or a facebook message, we are all writers. If we want to be taken seriously (and have our material published) we need to watch our language.