stuff.co.nz and Simon Cowell

I get my news mainly from stuff.co.nz

It's easy to get there and has the usual amount of daily news,

which is not very much but

enough to keep one informed enough

to have conversations with other stuff readers.

 

I also enough reading The Herald newspaper,

but I like their hard copy rather than their website

firstly, because their paper is delivered to my workplace everyday,

secondly, because there's something nice about reading a newspaper

(but not enough for me to buy my own regularly once I moved to house with no fireplace).

 

What surprises me is the reasonably consistent poor

 quality of language ability and grammar on stuff.co.nz

 

It's poor.

Today's example was over kill with the term (sic).

When you see (sic) in an article it means:

 

sic¹

sɪk/

adverb

adverb: sic

1. 1.

   used in brackets after a copied or quoted word that appears odd or erroneous to show that the word is quoted exactly as it stands in the original, as in a story must hold a child's interest and ‘enrich his (sic) life’

To sum it up,

(sic) means the reporter or writer of the article is

distancing him or herself from the poor language skills of the

subject and/or person quoted in the article.

Nice.

 

So in today's entertainment section*

there is an article about Simon Cowell's new baby boy.

In the article, tweets from Mr Cowell's are quoted.

They are about little Eric with things like this,

"Named after my dad (sic)"

or

""I never knew how much love and pride I would feel,(sic)" he captioned the shot."

In case you missed it,

the (sic) is because Simon failed to put a full stop at the end of his sentence and

a comma at the end of the second example.

I feel this is quite judgemental of Mr Cowell as

I suspect the first (sic) may also refer to his use of a small 'd' on 'dad'.

Some people choose to use a capital 'D' on 'Dad'

but... oh let's go with who cares if you use a big 'D' or a little 'd'.

 

According to how I understand the grammar usage of generic names it should be

a capital 'D' as Simon is referring to a specific Dad,

namely his own.

If he were referring to a groups of dads,

as in a non-specific muddle of dads,

then a lower case 'd' would be appropriate.

 

 

Now  on Twitter there is a certain degree of leeway,

that's the point.

There's leeway on blogs because it's personal,

so quirky twists to language and errors are part and parcel of the nature of blogs.

But as a formal publication, that it will be assumed provides well researched,

c

orrect and current information that is

presented in a interesting and informative manner

with quality spelling and grammar,

thoughtlessness, overzealousness

What I learned a longtime ago,

in the communications business is that as long as you are consistent

in your poor or correct grammar,

then that is fine.

This is to accommodate the changes in how we use language over the generations.

 

But for stuff.co.nz to be sticklers about missing full stops and false commas

when quoting the bastion of poor and creative spelling and grammar, Twitter

but ignoring the very regular errors of spelling in other articles.

What I have realised is that the grammar Nazis are in the articles

directly gathered from overseas.

And the badly spelled articles are by domestic reporters. 

 

Unfortunate.

 

* The range of current events news is pretty limited, so I am forced to read the entertainment page.  It's not so bad I have to read the sports page.

 



I would

tell you lots of news but frankly

I find it all boring

so I imagine you would also.

I will tell you a few things that I have been thinking about lately.

Osama bin Laden...

what's up with all the Americans dancing in the streets?

How Arabic of them.

I was surprised there weren't men firing Kalashnikovs

into the sky in Times Square.

Maybe I'm too stiff upper lip British in my heritage

but some one's death,

any one's death

isn't really something anyone should be dancing in the streets about.

Osama's (if I may be so familiar) death

is hardly the end of things

and certainly not the end of the mess America has lead many

foolish countries into in Iraq or Afghanistan

because let's face it neither had much to do with Osama at the end of the day.

I wonder why America hasn't invade Pakistan?

They were hosting/hiding Osama after all.

And I think that those SEALs killed Mr bin* Laden

before the Royal Wedding

(didn't want to but ended up loving it)

but the White House PR guys held off.

Kind of like when Prince Charles and Camila postponed their wedding

for Pope John Paul's funeral

only different.
But a considerate thought from Obama for the newly weds.

Nobody wants their happy day overshadowed

by the merchant of terror's death really, do they?

I was lazing in bed this morning reading the Sunday paper

and had to laugh when I read that

there is actually a series of romance novels

about hooking up with Navy SEALs.

Can you imagine that?

All sex scenes would be interrupted as his beeper goes off calling him to duty

leaving his missus dutifully frustrated and the book G rated.

Or;

Their torrid affair is on and off again as

she breaks up and then forgives him a spot of domestic violence

because he is a hero

and has post traumatic stress.

Or;

He is constantly in the bath practicing holding his breath for extended periods of time,

while she gets irritated by his constant barking**.

Or;

His kinky bedroom activities revolve around him dressed in

head to toe latex not dissimilar to a wetsuit

and her being held hostage

(not by him cause he is the hero, by bad guys,

probably of the Arab persuasion. 

Talk about taking your work home with you).

Actually maybe having a SEAL for a husband wouldn't be a bad thing.

You'd never have to hear about his day cause he can't talk about it.

Loose lips sink ships.

But to give you an idea of how hard it is to be a Navy SEAL

watch this.
I like it for the utter boredom of the workout
 and for the work out outfits of  both the trainees and the instructors.
Wearing belts while training,
now that is a way to train up the best of the best,
probably helps as handles when you have to haul off their mind numbed exhausted bodies.

* am assuming bin is like the Dutch van.

** ok not that kind of seal, but those drill sergeants do bark.