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I haven't corrected this post

6/11/2017

4 Comments

 
I'm going to type this post without going back for corrections. That means typos, soelling mistakes and badly expressed sentences will all be left instacvt (that was supposed to read 'intact'). I'm a pretty fast typer (typist?) this days but that foens't mean I'm accurate so i do spend a lot of time deleting or retreating back to where I was to correct the typo wit its little red wavy line that's, well, waving at me. There are four so far, plus another typos that (oh, five) that hasn't been fagged (six!) flaggrd up because they are actual words that are spelled (spelt? which is also a type of flour so I'm not sure why that's been underlined) correcty (correctly) but of course are wrong in this context. If I were (was?) writing this in Word (whch I'm not) then running a spellcheck without reading through it manually (I think that's a sexit word (! sexist, obviously - sexit isn't an appropriate word for this post) but there are few gender-neutral equivalents) (Where was I?) running a spellcheck without reading through it myself would only pick up, what, 85% of the errors and of course also wouldn't flag up these long, rambling sentences and the glut of brackets that, some might say, make the text difficult to read.
Another thng I can't do in theis post is go back to restructure sentences or put in additional thoughts. Which now makes me wary that I've started this new train of though too early. Perhaps I should have developed the idea of how spellcheck isn't enough (hmm. shoulf I vapitalise / capitalise 'spellcheck'? Normally I'd check to see if it's a brand mae , argh, brand name pf Microsoft. I've just checked - no, it's a genric / generic term but it'soften spelt / spelled as two words, depending on the source. That's interesting: my software has underlined 's;pelt' (or 'spelt' actually) but not 'it'soften' - is that a real word? What a shame you, the reader. won't be able to see all the red squiggles when this is posted. I could do a screnshot. Hang on a mo...
Picture
I have to admit that I made a typo (I typod. Typo'd. Typoed?) while saving the image file - but the thought of seeinf 'Uncorrected scrennshot' every time I open that folder annoyed me so much that I corrected it. Anyway, as you can see, there are plenty of red lines, which I would normally acoorect / correct ht the 'lazy' way by right clikcing on the word and selecting the correct spelling from the optionsd. Obviously, I do know how to spell those words but it's a little quicker to get it done automatically than to go and do it myself, which in any case, as you can guess from my lack of typing skills so far, may introfuce more errors. But, stop a moment! Is 'spelt' actually wrong in this context? Only if you're AMerician, apparently. But I'm not American so it's correct. My Weebly spellchecker (or possibly my Chrome spellchecker) accepts only American spellings. I can probably change the settinfs to a British English dictionary but, If US English is the default, how common is it for people to do that? Obviously, I use the English British (argh) fictionary in Word, at least, if that's what's requiredfor the work I'm doing. (Rest assured, clients!) What wlse? Ah, 'fagged' instead of 'flagged' isn't underlined at all - that could be an embarrassing mistake incertain contexts. And 'pf' is apparently a 'real' word. Really? This link suggests it's short for perfective aspect (Pasted from the link: "The perfective aspect is a feature of the verb which denotes viewing the event the verb describes as a completed whole, rather than from within the event as it unfolds. ") Oh, of course. That's such a common abbreviation , evidently, that it's not worth drawing attention to it, according to the spellchecker (spell checker?). Then why does 'perfective' now have a squiggly line under it? It is, apparently, perfectly acceptable, even if only linguits / linguists know what it means.
I'm putting in a header here to break up the text
Anyway. You can see my point. you pobABLY (darn caps lock being so close to A) you probably can't see my point all that clearly, but you get the gist. (I need to improve the formatting of that header but I can't go back anf do it, huh.)
To summarise in a handy 10-pojnt list that's so beloeved / beloved of bloggers:
  1. Do use a spellcheck. It's pretty hanfy for identifying typos and spelling mistakes.
  2. Right click on the underlined word to bring up the spelling options.
  3. Don't kust / just use a spellcheck though. You also need to read through your text to spot any errors that software can't pick up.
  4. It's even better if you get someone else to read it. You know where I'm going with this. That's where editors come in (yay!) but of course any fresh eye us / is likely to pick yp on things you eon't. Won't.
  5. Writing takes time. Not just the dashing off your rhoughts paert, but also going back to check and edit and double-check and re-edit and rewrite and sometimes restructure.
  6. You also need to think about overall formatting ans structure. Much of this text is pretty dense, stream-og-counsciousness stuff, wnich some people may find hard to read. And ofcourse people scan text online too so a big block of text is not only intimidating but also inunviting. Uninviting.
  7. You could, of course, argue that you can still read and understandf this post, even with all the errors and confusion. Well, thanks for your confiendence in my abiilites. I have honestly just dashed this off and havne't gone back to read anything. Who needs edfitors and proofreaders, eh? But , out of context, dfes it look profesisonal? If this text was in your book or wevsite or marketing brochure, would you really be happy to sendf it out? So here I am risking my reputaiton to make a particular point. You're welcome.
  8. Even editors and writers (that's me) need to edit themselves. It's not easy. It's a skill. But it's a skill that everyone can learn to some extent. We editorial progessionals (hmm, progressionals. Are those editors who are happy to accept that language changes and some zombie rules can be forgotten?) professiohals have just spent a long time honing and improving our ability to so it. To do it. We even enjoy it. My fingers are ithcing to correct everything here. How lovely it would look. But you'd jave have know idea (argh, no idea, that's embarrassing) how much work would have been put into the corrections. We're very modest, we (us?) editors.
  9. I'm afraid now that I'll be deliverabltt / delibr / deliberately not correcting anything all day. Better get back into Edit Mode.
  10. That elusive 1oth / tenth point. Here's an idea - wat / what would p you put as number 10? Tell me in the comments below! (see what I did there?)
​Signing off with a badly typed conclusion. Actually, that looks OK. Better end while I'm ahead. Bye!
4 Comments

    See also...

    My book review blog: Ju's Reviews
    ​

    My contributions to the SfEP blog:
    Lightning talks
    SfEP celebrates Children's Book Week
    ​A survival guide for introverts networking at the SfEP conference​
    ​10 things you didn’t know about the SfEP social media teams
    ​Supporting sentences and each other
    ​
    Why photo shoots need editors too​
    Five reasons editors love Twitter

    ​​
    I wrote this too.

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