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When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)

A Kat Bouska prompt this week is: Update and republish a blog post you wrote during the month of May in a previous year. We are out of town for a small getaway (and for me to take in a couple of plays at the Orlando Fringe Festival), so I brought this blog post from May 2010 out of the mothballs and refreshed it for 2021.

Updates for 2021 are in RED.

When the going gets though, the though get going.

What was I doing putting a period in a title? I still can’t decide whether I want my titles to be sentence case (only an initial capital letter) or title case, but either way, periods are unnecessary.

Some people sing with the voices of angels.  Some people run long distances quickly.  Some people coach athletic teams to win, season after season.  Me, I see typos.  As several of my previous Wordless Wednesday posts attest, many letters are being written on objects that do not move while perfectly good letter-writing paper goes unused.  Thank goodness Mrs. Bowen, my sixth grade teacher, gave us students the hint that “stationary” has an “a” in its last three letters to remind us of an “anchor,” something that remains still.  “Stationery,” on the other hand, is used for writing letters. 

Good lord. Do I see two spaces after every period in this post? That wouldn’t happen in 2021. I should have hyphenated “sixth-grade.” Otherwise, stationary and stationery still get mishandled by many writers, and Mrs. Bowen’s trick for keeping them straight is timeless.

When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)

As for this graphic, back in 2010, I didn’t really have any best practices for acquiring graphics. I probably grabbed this off of Google images or something. 

When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)

Here’s a bona fide image for 2021 that I know I have the rights to use. Thanks, Unsplash. 

My nickname at Healthy Kids has been “The Big Green Pen” for many years now.  Because I use a green felt-tip pen when I edit letters, and because I am, to put it mildly, generous with the green ink, the nickname is permanent and has become my identity on Twitter (@biggreenpen) and among my proofreading/copyediting clients. 

Still true, except for the present tense in Healthy Kids. I left HK in 2014. 

There are a few of us at the office who enjoy language, and appreciate language used with precision and care.  Therefore, when I see something egregious (like the recent “Flordia”), I send out a quick email with a “Big Green Pen Challenge.”  When my coworker, Niki Pocock, participated in the most recent “Big Green Pen Challenge,” she included in her response a link to a blog by Bob Gabordi, Executive Editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, in which  Bob discusses why answering his phone is always an adventure.  As part of his blog, when he refers to a caller who questioned whether the Democrat still utilizes proofreaders, he wrote:

Losing those people huddled in the back proofreading pages was part of the price we paid for technology. These days, newspaper pages go straight from the newsroom’s computers to metal plates that go on the press. Fewer eyes are looking for typos and minor grammar flaws.

Neither of the links in this paragraph work anymore. I am, however, still in touch with Niki. Bob is no longer at the Tallahassee Democrat and now owns Gabordi Media. Last year, he wrote “The Truth: Real Stories and the Risk of Losing a Free Press in America.” You can buy it at Amazon, but I’m sure a local bookstore such as Midtown Reader would appreciate your business too. 

 

(Side note — this blog sure could have used some subheads.)

Between my initial reading (on Friday) of Bob’s blog and logging on to http://www.tallahassee.com/ this morning, two typos jumped off the page (first case) and screen (second case).  It was time to e-mail Bob.

In my e-mail, I expressed my hope that there can be some happy medium between those non-existent “back of the room” proofreaders and “a journalistic organization resigning itself to an attitude of “we’ll catch what we can, but errors happen.” 

I pointed out the on-line lead for the well-done “print exclusive” article about the fiscal difficulties faced by the LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts.  The text stated:

The recession has been particularly though on the
 
LeMoyne Center for the Visual Arts, a Tallahassee
nonprofit that’s been around for 47 years.

2021 Paula wouldn’t have hyphenated “on-line.” 

I also pointed out that the header to a very informative article in yesterday’s Democrat, which described how to prepare for the sport of triathlon, was titled this way:

Break in new gear as part of pre-race preperation. 
 
Arguably, neither of these errors did any damage.  The recession is still hitting Lemoyne; athletes still need to break in their gear to get ready for triathlons. 
 
I once proofread a friend’s resume.  I’m pretty sure the friend’s career might have gone a whole different direction if the friend’s original representation of her “Master’s in Public Administration” had not had its “L” in “Public” replaced before distribution. 
 
For examples of typos that have done more than annoy, visit Eye for Ink’s Typo of the Month page.  You can even subscribe to receive a new “particularly embarrassing or expensive” typo every month (if you can stand it!). 
 
The Typo of the Month page no longer exists.
 
 
When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)
 
Where did THIS mystery image come from? 
 
I can’t find a “punctuation” image on Pixabay or Unsplash that I like. Maybe, if I had time, I’d make my own on PicMonkey or Canva. For now, we’ll just skip it. 
 
When my new smartphone started anticipating my words for me, so that, for example, I could start typing “let’s get lu….” and the phone would pop up with the options of “lunch” or “lucky,” I started tuning in to the types of technology that have become an expectation of my 10- and 13- year old children.  There is very little thinking involved; your message can be composed and sent in a flash. 
 
The children are now 21 and 24. Gulp. 
 
But getting “lunch” and getting “lucky” are different.  I imagine there are many people out there I might want to have lunch with, but only one I plan to get lucky with!
 
In the final paragraph of my email to Bob, I said, “However, if we parents do manage to get our kids to read the newspaper (one can always hope) or if a teacher requires students to read an article in the newspaper for a class-related assignment, I think it is important that the writers/publishers have made every effort to show that they care about the “small considerations” of spelling and grammar in addition to the “big considerations” of what they have to say.”
 
I don’t really have any changes to the above paragraph. I don’t know how much my kids, as young adults, read the newspaper. I still hope they will. The newspaper is important. I hope they’ll support their local paper with at least a digital subscription. I hope they’ll consider supporting nonprofits such as the Institute for Nonprofit News that are filling in the cracks left behind as the newspaper industry contracts. 
 
Bob responded within two hours of my original e-mail.  His response e-mail, in which he assured me that typos “drive me utterly insane” (yay! a kindred spirit), he also pointed out that the “online editing process is different … than the print process.”  He discussed the “nature of writing and editing so quickly for the 24-7 news cycle” and commented that, “such errors have always been a problem for newspapers.”  Bob said that, “Newspapers have long been called the first draft of history ……. Now, with the Web, perhaps print is the second draft.  But in either case, we have never faced more intense deadline pressure than now and I would not be surprised if our typo-error rate is not higher than in previous generations.” 
 
2021 Paula wouldn’t have hyphenated “e-mail.” This paragraph, though, hits a completely different headspace for me now. I wasn’t working in digital journalism in 2010. Now I am (I have been since 2017). I’m still extremely picky about spelling and grammar. Now, though, I am on the receiving end of the reader feedback when there’s an error. Like Bob, I respond as immediately as I can. Customer perceptions matter. 
 
I do, however, have a different appreciation for the different types of pressure a digital journalist faces. You’re under a time crunch, which can be the enemy of even the pickiest editor. You’re (possibly) facing budgetary constraints. You can’t necessarily pay lavishly for a cadre of copy editors and proofreaders. Sometimes, as a digital journalist, you have to hire well, train thoroughly, and do your absolute best. When mistakes happen, you have to own up to them and try to fix any issues that can be repaired. 
 
In closing, Bob wrote, “there is anything but a casual attitude or reaction to such errors in our newsroom.  If I gave that impression, it is a false one.” 
 
I really appreciate the e-mail exchange I shared with Bob, and the articulate, explanatory nature of his response.
 
Bob is a treasure. I still wish we all had more resources for copy editing and proofreading, but 2021 Paula would be less inclined to email a newspaper editor on a Sunday morning with a complaint and more inclined to resolve to keep my own grammatical house in order.
 
 
When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)
 
Writing, proofreading, and editing have always been a big part of my life.  Sometimes it has been professionally compensated; other times it has been on behalf of a cause that I love.  When I left the Holy Comforter book club tonight, thinking about next month’s book, Half the Sky, it occurred to me that quibbling over “it’s/its, heel/heal, peek/peak, and other grammatical no-no’s,” while important to preserving the integrity of the written word, is a true luxury compared to the life and death struggles the women featured in the book face from the moment they are born. 
 
 
To tell the story of the women featured in “Half the Sky,” though, and other stories meant to inform, convince, and reassure, requires attention to language and detail.  It is that attention to detail and drive to be accurate that I seek to keep alive by protecting the way in which language is used. 
 
 
Maybe I’ll “get lucky” and this blog won’t have any errors.  Anyone want to “get lunch” and calmly discuss?
 
The only thing funny about this last line is the fact that in 2010, a reference to getting lunch wouldn’t bring up any pandemic-related questions such as, “Do they have outdoor seating?” “What are their mask rules?” and the like. I think I like the 2010 innocence better.
 
When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)
 

I’m not sure where I got this image either, but I think/hope it’s in the public domain and I’m leaving it!

NOTE: I also had no idea what Yoast was in 2010. I was still publishing in Blogger. I wasn’t creating meta descriptions and was basically such a blog newbie that I just wrote what I wrote and pressed publish. I’ve added all of that to this version.

When the going gets though, the though get going (2021 version)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Diane Tolley says

    I am terrible at typos. I can’t see them unless I’m reading aloud. My brain just fills them in. Before I publish, I employ, not one, but two editors. (Of course, all of that changes if I read something I wrote months or even weeks or days before–then my typos stick out like cacti in a barren landscape. The sad thing is I seldom have time to go back weeks or days later. Sigh.)
    Oh, the ‘me’ of ten years ago. How have I changed. Improved? Hopefully. Slid back? Likely.

    Reply

  2. Paula Kiger says

    It’s a truly constant battle, Diane. Especially once you have read your own work (or someone else’s) and it is no longer fresh in your mind, it’s a tough challenge.

    Reply

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