The media and poor grammar

pickle

I've lost count of the number of times i have found poor grammar in the newspapers or on television. If i'm paying for it then i expect it to be well written. It also sets an example for children learning the language. For example, in one newspaper today:
Books: Blunders in dictionary of biography threaten university press's name. They may have had a point if they hadn't themselves written press's rather than the correct press'. The other error that continually pops up is loosing rather than losing. What happened to basic grammar and spelling? :mad:

Queenie

Agreed!

We all make mistakes, naturally, but whatever happened to proof reading one's work?

badgermonkey

Actually, the s after the possessive apostrophe for a noun ending in s is optional, so it is not incorrect to leave it on, nor to omit it.

It depends on the house style of the publication.

There is, however, no excuse for loosing.

condyk

That's punctuation isn't it ;-) Grammar is a social construct that constantly evolves, based on usage. Not sure what you're using as a benchmark, but no doubt already well behind the times.

Fatboy_NSS

Press's is correct, although it could correctly be abbreviated to press'. However newspapers tend to avoid using abbreviations.

I personally don't think this is a major problem in the media. I spot the odd typo in the paper, but not a vast amount. No matter how well proofread an article is, some errors are likely to slip through.

IvanOpinion

So far I have spotted 9 grammatical and/or spelling mistakes in the responses on this thread (including the OP).

On the other hand you only have to look at the pile of hacks that write for most of the rags we are expected to read to find that many are barely literate and don't speak proper english like wot I does.

Ivan

Toxteth_OGrady

pickle wrote:

I've lost count of the number of times i have found poor grammar in the newspapers or on television. If i'm paying for it then i expect it to be well written.

Excepting, of course, improper use of lower case for the first person singular pronoun!

:cool:

TOG

s@sha

The one that always gets on my nerves is 'expresso' coffee. It's bad enough that a newspaper or magazine can't get it right, but when the coffee-shop that's actually selling it can't spell it properly....sheesh!

Edited to correct a typo (blush!)

Lucie_2

s&#64 wrote: »

The one that always gets on my nerves is 'expresso' coffee.

That drives me nuts too, but my real pet hate is potato's / tomato's

Aaaaaaaarrgggghhhhhhh!!!!

IvanOpinion

s&#64 wrote: »

The one that always gets on my nerves is 'expresso' coffee. It's bad enough that a newspaper or magazine can't get it right, but when the coffee-shop that's actually selling it can't spell it properly....sheesh!

Which is the correct spelling. I have always used 'espresso' (simply because my coffee machine, which is from Italy, spells it that way) whereas others use 'expresso' - and the online dictionary includes both - maybe both are valid!

Ivan

BFG_2

I agrfee, the grammar nowadays is getting worser and far badder.