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Tuesday, April 22
The Plight of the Proofreader
From an Omaha Craig's List post today, advertising a "cut rate" wedding photographer (likely someone like me who does photography as a hobby and is trying to break into full-time photography by offering "not quite professional" work for a fraction of the regular price):
I think that photographer should importance of your special day as if they were your family . . . I have helped many family and friends with a creating wedding event pictures . . . Wedding events and everything experienced throughout the day can be such a blur with recalling it several months later . . .
I'm pretty forgiving of spoken errors, given the pressures and time constraints of immediate replies; I'm far less charitable toward catastrophic language breakdown in printed material. While I'm not one, despite my unfortunate and usually concealed pretentious penchants, to engage in the ego-feeding activity of unsolicited grammar correction, I'm not above judging a person's professional qualifications based upon his or her "best foot forward." In other words, if language is not your area of expertise, ask a friend to proofread your literature before presenting it to potential clients. (Lest I appear *too* discouraging, I do wish the poster the best of luck; I can empathize with the plight of the "not quite professional" photographer.) Labels: proofreading
Posted at 1:32:00 PM. |
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Saturday, March 25
Vocabulary Expansion
You know it's going to be an interesting day when you see " flocculating" in a document . . . Labels: proofreading
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Thursday, December 22
Lisa Gets All the Fun Documents
As part of my job, I'm responsible for verifying that pieces of text from other documents or on handwritten pages (called "riders") are correctly placed in the main document (much of legal work is conforming the language in several documents or using previous documents as "templates" and changing the text to reduce the chances of errors). Normally, the attorneys label these as "Rider 1," "Rider A-2," "Rider 32B," etc., with the number or letter corresponding to either the sequential order or the page number (or both). Every so often, though, an attorney is bored . . . (Lisa was kind enough to point it out to me, since somehow I managed *not* to get the one document in the history of the Firm that referenced Obi-Wan Kenobi . . .) Labels: proofreading
Posted at 12:48:00 PM. |
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Friday, September 23
Seen in a Document
"The Bonds were offered for ale to the public." Just in case you've ever wanted to trade Guinness for revenue bonds. Labels: proofreading
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Tuesday, May 17
Seen in a Document
"masochistic judicial flagellation" For those people who get screwed over by the legal system and like it. Labels: proofreading
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Saturday, April 23
This Turbid World
I came across several new words at work today, but unfortunately I had the mental fortitude to retain only one of them. So your word for the day is " turbidity." Yes, that was in a legal document. Those wacky lawyers. I'd ramble profusely along some random line of semi-consciousness, but, after 3 hours of overtime after work, in addition to the hour-and-a-half before work (for yet another mind-numbingly boring computer class, this time for a program for which I'd already proofed the manual), and in preparation for my triumphant return to the office later today (back to the same project I just left), I'm off to bed for about six hours of semi-fitful dreaming. :) Hope everyone is having a great Saturday. Enjoy the beautiful weather. ;) Labels: proofreading
Posted at 4:01:00 AM. |
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Friday, April 15
Seen in a Document
"Without limiting the foregoing, all requisite approvals, including, but not limited to, all pubic utility approvals and zoning approvals, have been obatined." Proofreaders are a good thing. Labels: proofreading
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Wednesday, April 13
"Strange Vocabulary"
(Disclaimer: I'm not making any commentary either pro- or anti-Union. I'm simply making fun of the language.) Seen in a document tonight: 1. The following are the major warning signs that a union organizing drive may have begun at the facility:
. . .
m. Employees begin using a strange vocabulary, using words like "justice," "respect," or "dignity." I know I'm always concerned when I hear people using strange and uncommon words like that. "Honesty" is pretty frightening, too, and there was this time I heard the word "integrity" while walking around a Borders and almost called 911. Labels: proofreading
Posted at 9:21:00 PM. |
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Monday, January 31
Seen in a Document
"How far were you in this room from the window that you described talking to him through?"
Ack! Labels: proofreading
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Tuesday, December 28
Abbreviations for Fun and Profit
It's hard to take a document seriously when it defines "short-term disability" as "STD" and proceeds to talk about the plaintiff's "STD claim" and "STD benefits" (are there any?). Labels: proofreading
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Wednesday, October 27
Seen in a Document
"The Trustee shall not be required to make payment of any Bond until such Bond shall be presented to the Trustee for appropriate endorsement or for cancellation if frilly paid." Labels: proofreading
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Friday, October 22
Legal Innuendo
Headings seen in a document today:
7. Performance Standards
7.2 Failure to Perform
7.3 User Satisfaction
7.5 Measurement Tools
I wonder if being married to a lawyer involves contracts like these. "I'm sorry, you failed to abide by Section 7, Clause 4 of the Marriage Agreement, 'Minimum Duration,' so I'm forced to resort to the punishment set forth in Section 13, Clause 9(a), 'Withholding.'" Labels: proofreading
Posted at 10:39:00 PM. |
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Friday, September 17
Seen in a Document
"Christ is hard-nosed."
Take that as you will. I'm only reporting what I see (and I changed it to "Chris").
On a similar note, has anyone seen these disturbing statues? Yikes. Labels: proofreading
Posted at 10:23:00 PM. |
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Tuesday, August 24
Seen in a Document
"We get all kinds of weird calls. People don't talk real good English."
-a witness complaining about the English spoken by a Chinese immigrant Labels: proofreading
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Wednesday, July 14
Is It Slavery or Work?
Seen in a document:
"Special rules apply if you own more than 5% of your employer."
What if you're only leasing your employer . . .? Labels: proofreading
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Tuesday, July 13
Buzz Words
Seen in a document:
"They will be able to draw on the complementarities and synergies of the two specialists so as to fulfill their ambition of growth."
Someone is overcompensating for something. Labels: proofreading
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Monday, July 12
Hot Off the . . . Scanner
I've mentioned before the sometimes-amusing results of the scanning software that attempts to recognize and reconstruct words from scanned documents. Usually it ends up entirely nonsensical, but occasionally a literary gem shines through the textual murk, begging to be shown to the world. On one of my recent projects, the software was attempting to recognize the name "Lummus." Instead, on a single page, I got:
Lunimus
Lutnmus
Luinnius
Lumntus
Lunirnus
The most amusing (and most wince-inducing), however, was the substitution of "cob" for "colo" in " colorectal." Labels: proofreading
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Saturday, June 12
Grammar at 4 a.m.
I've put in several hours of overtime this week ("several" as in double digits), including four hours tonight (the post date says Saturday but it's still my Friday night). It's been a stressful week. Cris messaged me at work tonight, though, to see how I was doing. I actually took a screenshot of the funny conversation we had, but of course in my tired and frazzled state I forgot to actually paste it into an e-mail and send it to myself at home before I logged off, so it's forever lost in the electronic ether. You'll just have to trust me that the gist of it went like so:
Cris: Hey! How was work?
Me: I'm still there. :P AFK a minute while I grab a document from the printer.
Cris: Seriously? That really sucks me. :(
Cris: Er, man.
Me: *ROFL*
Me: Thanks for cheering my up. :)
Me: Dammit, now you have me doing it, too.
Cris: Yeah, it's a " face in my door" night.
And now I'm off to bed. For like 12 hours. This time with my pajamas on right-side out. Labels: proofreading
Posted at 5:26:00 AM. |
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Friday, June 11
Seen in a Document II
A. That is what I understood.
Q. Is there a difference between what you're saying and what I'm saying?
A. I don't know what you're saying.
It's a good night for amusing text. Labels: proofreading
Posted at 8:33:00 PM. |
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Seen in a Document
"Thereafter, the employee will use personal leave and then vacation time until they are exhausted."
Time to start booking tiring vacations . . . Labels: proofreading
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Thursday, May 27
Typo!
Seen tonight in a document: "In connection with a Successful Bid for one or more sites located in the Chicago area that are branded with the White Her Fanny Inc. convenience store brand . . ."
It's actually supposed to be the name of a real convenience store (left out here so I can keep my job), but the optical character scanner had a bit of trouble . . . Then again, a convenience store with that name might do well in the right neighborhoods. Labels: proofreading
Posted at 8:52:00 PM. |
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Thursday, March 25
Fun word-seen-in-a-document of the day:
" arrearages"
Its meaning isn't nearly as cool as the way it sounds.
Labels: proofreading
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Tuesday, March 16
Morbid Curiosity
Seen in a document tonight: "mortality or morbidity contingencies"
I don't know what it means legally, but it's my new catch phrase. Labels: proofreading
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Tuesday, February 10
Seen in a document tonight: "Beginning in 1998, they recognized the need to better integrate ethanol production with cattle operations, in order to convert waste streams into revenue streams."
Nope, not made up. Labels: proofreading
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Friday, January 30
Seen in a document tonight:
"As provided in the Phasing Plan, Owner shall convey to Town the Public Land ho."
(It was supposed to say "the Public Land for a fire station." This way is funnier, but I fixed it anyway.)
On an unrelated note, I think I'm getting sick. Ick. :( Labels: proofreading
Posted at 9:23:00 PM. |
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