Recently, a good friend of mine sent me some reading material. Among the books was one called "Talk to the Hand" by Lynne Truss. I am in love with it. It deals with rudeness and lack of manners that plague society in modern times. While it centers on the UK (the author is British), I can still relate, despite living in the United States. Or perhaps because I live here?
The book addresses issues I have always wondered about in my head, and the author has a wonderfully snarky tone. Right up my alley. She writes about how customer service really is not about the customer at all, how parents don't correct their children anymore, how you can't address rudeness and rampant children at all for fear of being cussed out (often by the children), how reality TV shows teach selfishness, greed, and aggression, and many other issues. One of the key points she writes about is the decline of language, grammar and spelling skills.
Ironically, only 24 pages into the book, in a paragraph where she discusses the horrors of poor grammar, I found a mistake. She used the word "you" when it should have been "your." The snarkophile in me immediately checked the publishing date to see if I could send a snarky email pointing out a grammatical error when discussing poor grammar of others.
Alas, the book was published in 2005, so I guess I'll have to refrain. True, "you" and "your" are often mistyped and I've done so many times. Also, I always find mistakes after I post my blog entries and am sure my readers do too. Regardless, I can't help but edit in my head as I read other people's work. What's more, in the pages to follow she has a disturbing discrepancy when using quotation marks. Sometimes commas appear before the mark, sometimes after.
Oh, why can't I just read a book and overlook these things?
5 comments:
Hard to turn off the editor!
Because you, my dear friend, are a writer. I do the same thing, re-write books as I'm reading them. It is hard to enjoy a book sometimes, but you do get to recognize the good ones that way. If you can't find anything you'd change, we have a winner!
It annoys me and I always wonder who proof read the book. I once found a mistake in the first paragraph. It was a very obvious spelling mistake. I nearly closed the book and refused to read it! But its not always the authors fault..complain to the publishers.
You're a writer, so it's impossible to turn off the editor!
Sherry, that is so true. Thanks for stopping by!
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