Imagine a major-league centerfielder standing, say, midway between second base and the outfield fence.
This multimillion-dollar player is focusing intensely on a towering fly ball headed precisely in his direction, but he’s ignoring the ball’s trajectory. He isn’t dashing toward the point at which the ball would fall into his glove.
Just as the ball reaches a spot perpendicular to his head, he tries for a catch simply by raising his glove as high as possible, but the ball sails 50 feet above him.
Fans would go berserk at the sight of a pro player’s disregard for so many fundamentals.
Likewise, some readers want to pull their hair (and ours) when they come across pro wordsmiths’ lapses in spelling and grammar, no matter whether the errors occur in news content or advertising.
Readers hold journalists to extremely high expectations of fairness, accuracy and balance and extremely high standards as well when it comes to correct spelling and grammar. This may seem to be a trite matter, given the efforts these days to respond to the demand for ethical practice, but it’s good to remember that basics also involve flawless mechanics.
Readers who know English brook no offense to the language from professional writers and editors.
I’d estimate that most journalists are well aware of that, but now and then over the years, I’ve heard a few staffers scoff at that view. They do so at their own peril.
Like it or not, knowledge of the language is central to the craft and credibility of journalism and any news outlet that employs the printed word, no matter which language is used — English, Spanish, Vietnamese, French, German, you name it. Rightly or wrongly, incorrect language can suggest ignorance and questionable professionalism.
We know that’s true from studies and such. But the best measure for years has been reaction from the horse’s mouth — readers themselves, and we hear from them almost every day about misspelled words or incorrect grammar that they’ve come across in news stories and advertising.
For instance, a few days ago one reader called with this complaint:
“Last weekend,” she said, “you ran a full-page ad for an estate sale. Twice you listed ‘Bronze Statutory.’ Shouldn’t that have been ‘Statuary’? Do you not have proofreaders at the Star-Telegram? I have noticed many improperly used English words in your paper. Doesn’t anyone know proper English at the Star-Telegram?”
It was tempting to reply that the use of statutory was positively criminal. Or even presidential, as malapropisms go. But it was no moment for puns or humor in any form. Her comments were shared with the advertising department.
Then there was the reader who encountered so many editing oversights one morning that she felt compelled to complain:
“Because errors catch the eye and disrupt the flow of reading, they are irritating.
“Within a few minutes of scanning today’s paper, I stopped after three such errors to protest. You (plural) can do better.
“On Page 2A, in the Pet Care piece, the list of dogs alternates between plural (which would be correct) to singular, then ends with the plural. Bad form!
“On Page 15A, in ‘Getting a closer look,’ you will find that the exhibit is housed in ‘… a unused …’ (instead of ‘an unused’).
“On Page 1B, in the caption under the picture of the overturned Cessna, the apparent correction went uncorrected, for it says, ‘… overturned down …’
Then she added a bonus complaint, presented here to give the reader her rightful due in the last-word department and to help us journalists remember that what we write is read with critical eyes and skepticism:
“On Page 4E, ‘Proper English is experiencing a resurgence.’ Really?”
