seriously Remington?

[P7M13]

But that's not what you said, or implied, in the previous post. At least as I read it.

Agreed. Meme bytes can easily be misunderstood.
The other implication I did not specify later is that mistakes like that can upset the apple cart for those who tend to be precise. I see it as a mistake, one I chose to view as reliance on spellcheck or autocorrect -- ultimately laziness -- and it's a minnow in a sea of monsters.

However, if I'm into something weighty, you can bet that it's going to get a lot of scrutiny.

Fun times indeed.
Two favorites of mine over the decades which affect how I review my own presentations:


and



It was just Irving M Copi when Carl Cohen taught me the material back in the '80s.

 

[gmerkt]

I see stupid gaffs in headlines of major newspapers from time to time. With print journalism having fallen on hard times, I guess copy editing is one of the early casualties. Never mind the text, at least get the headlines right. Misspelled words, like, "Boing" for "Boeing."

 

[deadeye]

 

[teflon6string]

 

[albin25]

Nit Picker Poetry

Rozes arr read,
vyolitz arr blew.
I ken reed thyz,
sew ken ewe.
- Remington

 

[teflon6string]

There, they're, their.

 

[saread]

Agreed. Meme bytes can easily be misunderstood.
The other implication I did not specify later is that mistakes like that can upset the apple cart for those who tend to be precise. I see it as a mistake, one I chose to view as reliance on spellcheck or autocorrect -- ultimately laziness -- and it's a minnow in a sea of monsters.

At the risk of a threadjack, this brings up the subject of audience and message. I've had to present for a big variety of crowds and the idea of precision really comes into its own depending on whom that audience is. If I'm yelling at engineers (you never talk with them, you always talk at them), the message is much more precise and targeted. In terms of content and language. That crowd tends to really get hung up on incongruities so you really need to nail it down. Now, if we get to the trade groups, those are really fun. The presentation can be embellished a bit and presented in a looser way that lets your inner ham cut loose. There can be some really fun engagement. They tend to think in more macro terms and don't get hung up on minutia. My least favorite is presenting to executives. Your stuff has to be at the 3rd grade level, in bites and put out in a really compressed time frame. You never get the chance to interact, only react, to questions. Ugh. The point of all this is that there are times when I worry about a small error, and times when it just doesn't matter. Execs don't care if you miss a comma. All they want is the down and dirty, fast. My favorite example of this was some years ago I was pitching a roadway rehab/maintenance program at McCarran Int'l Airport to the airport manager. I spent two weeks prepping for the show. Maps, Power point, numbers, extrapolations, weather, airline schedules, number of cats at the shelter, height of Boulder Dam, time of flight to Area 51, yadda, yadda, yadda. I fly down to the airport early in the morning, get to the room two hours early for set up, familiarization, run through, cup of coffee. I'm expecting a crowd of department heads and the boss. The time arrives and in walks the airport manager alone, who takes a look at my giant full color project map and says "How much?" I say "Two million dollars." He says "Do it." and walks out. Fun times indeed.

 

[Mike_M57]

Illiterates of the World... UNTIE!

 

[Ruger Rich]

The company I work for hires out their web design. I spent a few days over the summer going through every page, finding typos, errors, incorrect links etc.

You'd be surprised how much of it slips by.

You'd be surprised how much of it slips by. I think this is true due to the fact that the reader may not be any sharper than the writer.

 

[P7M13]

If I'm yelling at engineers (you never talk with them, you always talk at them), the message is much more precise and targeted. In terms of content and language. That crowd tends to really get hung up on incongruities so you really need to nail it down.

That's funny - my experience is almost the opposite. Talk at engineers, they won't listen (vs. don't). Add in unknowns, incongruities, and ask their opinions and you get an awake, engaging bunch. Whisper what you really want them to think, and they will assimilate and morph it into their idea. Then watch the flood gates open. It becomes a task of unifying vision.

The presentation can be embellished a bit and presented in a looser way that lets your inner ham cut loose. There can be some really fun engagement.

Ham is a matter of style. I'm invariably that way.

My least favorite is presenting to executives. Your stuff has to be at the 3rd grade level, in bites and put out in a really compressed time frame.

You must deal with some Peter Principle execs. The ones I've presented to are phenomenally sharp, have zero tolerance for fluff, expect justification for your assertions, and will nail you to the cross if you're wrong. If you're assumptions or calculations are wrong, or your methodology doesn't mesh, you *will* be interrupted or even shown the door.
Several times I have been the messenger runner following the battle of Marathon, and have been sacrificed by execs for presenting unpleasant information. Being sacrificed isn't important - when my numbers prove accurate, I smile and wave.

I'm expecting a crowd of department heads and the boss. The time arrives and in walks the airport manager alone, who takes a look at my giant full color project map and says "How much?" I say "Two million dollars." He says "Do it." and walks out. Fun times indeed.

That's a clear statement that your work and your company's reputation and cred precedes you. Bravo!

 

[Flopsweat]

Illiteracy is insidious, pervasive, rampant and increasing by the minute in our country. A people that cannot read or write properly (even in their own language) is easy to influence and control. Literacy is not protected by a Constitutional amendment: therefore it can be taken away by incremental steps with no challenges.

Examples are everywhere. (Some closer and more frequent than I might freely refer to in this venue.)

Should that be "a people who"?

It's an honest mistake. The letter "d" and the letter "t" in the word "billet" are on the same keyboard.

Just be thankful it wasn't "bidet".

 

[Pete F]

Portland General Electric, the largest electric utility in Oregon, gave out coffee mugs one year as a thank you. They read something like, "Your what makes the Company Great." Thousands of mugs handed out before anyone noticed. The ones that they got back or didn't hand out were changed by crossing out the "r" and adding an apostrophe and an "re" above it. I wish that I still had one so that I could show you a picture. I will ask my wife in the morning to see if she kept one.

They made it into a joke, but I wonder whether the printer got it wrong or if it was an employee (I am betting on employee). Not the worst that they did in my employment history with them, but someone got bit for it. Why they didn't throw them away or donate them is something that puzzles me.

 

[jackrv]

*dieing

Dying is correct in this case.

 

[TorchRedTulsan]

Dying is correct in this case.

Yes. If you read the following messages, it was a joke. Incorrectly correcting someone about proof reading

 

[Gbirk]

I suppose it says something about me that I have to read all of the examples posted 2-3 times to catch the error, yet I understand the message the first time reading them?

I'm too lazy to be a grammar Nazi, and don't have the time/will to deal with those that are. If I don't catch it, and spell check doesn't catch it, I post it and move on. If it is work related and important I let someone else read it to catch the errors.

 

[MrMillspecer]

 

[Lilhigbee]

It's not even that...have you seen some of the changes that spellcheck makes on your behalf? Especially with predictive text? I've written perfectly valid words only to have the AI Spellcheck change them to a similar looking word that it thinks I meant to type.

There's probably one person writing copy for their entire website and then passing those text blocks to a web dev who couldn't care less what the words say, only how it looks on the page. Usually, these copy writers are responsible for every block of text that you see: the website, brochures, emails, ads, etc. There's always 60 hours of writing to get done in a 50 hour week.

Let's cut this poor guy some slack. It's an honest mistake.

Ah, Spellcheck; that little elf in your computer that really wants to help... but he's drunk.

 

[Capn Jack]

Wait until you leave your Mother-in-law a note and it comes back corrected in red pencil.

I still love her though.

 

[Ramjet12]

I'm guessing someone let auto-correct check their work.

Years ago I was on a email thread and someone tried to type in stateful firewall and auto-correct made it a tasteful firewall.
The jokes went on for months.

 

[Flymph]

I've already got a bad feeling about the quality control of this product, for some reason...