"Is it me or does there seem to be an epidemic of illiteracy and/or carelessness in campaign materials this cycle? Candidates who don't know the basic rules of grammar or spelling are legion." — Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun
No, Jon, it is not you.
While I cannot preach from the pulpit of good grammar without admitting an error or two or three on this blog or in the comments section where they occur too frequently (especially since the comments section does not have a post edit feature), there is an epidemic of bad writing and it's not limited to campaign materials. In the haste to communicate, candidates and companies are laying waste to the written word.
Newspapers are not exempt either. I don't know any reporters or columnists who profess perfect writing. Not anymore.
It seems all of us are so hardwired to mentally correct mistakes as we read, doubly so if we only proof on the screen. The net result is that more and more errors go missed in everything from government signs to the simplest letters. What I've also noticed occurring with more frequency is the propensity for other people to make additional errors while correcting the author's original errors, sometimes at a rate of three errors for every two corrections. And then, add to all that a whole lot of people who think they know.
Editing And Proofreading Your Work — 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 18
One of the topics I spend some time on in my half-day Editing And Proofreading Your Work class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is undoing the damage that other instructors have laid before me. Amazingly, at least 75 percent of the students (many working professionals) who take the class profess to be above average when it comes to good writing, editing, and proofreading.
It generally takes two exercises to undo this idea that they know. The first is to provide them an in-class editing exercise that usually results in startled expressions when they self-correct the assignment. After five years, I have yet to have a single student catch every error, and that assumes they don't correct what doesn't need to be.
The second is reading fifteen sentences with two word choices, and asking them to make the appropriate choice. Here are five:
1. Damage/Damages from the hurricane totaled more than $1 billion.
2. This is the photographer who/whom I had seen earlier.
3. The family emigrated/immigrated from Russia in 1995.
4. Neither the reporter nor the editor were/was pleased with the article when it was written.
5. The publisher's praise of my article was entirely pretense/pretext.
The last time I read this list, the class was overwhelmingly wrong. Not a single student could profess to have all fifteen right nor did the class ever overwhelmingly support a single correct word choice. Not once.
So that is what I do twice a year. For three hours, I try to help 15 to 20 students improve clarity, consistency, and correct usage. Does it work? Sometimes. But even then, only at the pace of one class at a time.