A friend sent this to me. She said that she reads a lot of medical records and sometimes the “typist” has some really bad errors that make it hard to understand. She said this appears to be standard questions that were asked, but you can see the error. Just because it passes spell check doesn’t mean it’s the right word!
This was in a recent breaking news story from my local television news station. It looks to me like they were trying to replace “fire trucks” with “ambulances” and failed.
It’s time for “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, use the Ask PTB tab on the website or send an email to [email protected] and they may appear here soon!
This week’s words are:
Memory tips:
My son passed this on to me after he had mentioned the error to one of the people involved, who then said, “You are your mom’s kid for sure.” I’m so proud!
This spam comment was in my “other” blog (60isthenew60blog.com). While I don’t have anything on that blog to let them know that proofreading is my passion, if you’re offering to write for someone, you should probably do a much better job in the three sentences you send them.
It’s time for a review of recent blog posts just in case you’ve missed them. We call this Replay Thursday. Here are posts from Proof That proofreading blog and 60 Is The New 60 blog during the past week.
https://proofthatblog.com/2019/04/05/grammar-giggle-pre-exisiting/
https://proofthatblog.com/2019/04/08/grammar-giggle-what-kind-of-wall/
https://proofthatblog.com/2019/04/09/confusing-words-of-the-week-52/
https://proofthatblog.com/2019/04/10/one-word-makes-retrial-of-convicted-murderer-necessary/
One word. The judge left one word out of his instruction to the jury in a murder trial and so a new trial must be held. It obviously was a very important word. The judge in the original trial had given instructions to the jurors that their verdict “must be guilty” if guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was not proven, instead of saying “must be not guilty,” which would be correct in that situation.
This is something I’ve actually seen a lot in proofreading. The lawyers (and, obviously, judges) know what they want to say, but in the process of instructing the jury or writing an important brief, important words are sometimes left out. If you are proofreading something and think that something important has been left out OR that a double negative changes the entire meaning, bring that to the author’s attention and let them decide if it should be changed.
There were other issues in this trial including the defense attorney who “really did not prepare for the penalty phase” and has since been convicted of tax crimes and disbarred. The court threw out the death sentence, ordered a new sentencing hearing but rejected a new trial, and the case is on appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. All because of one word.
It’s time for “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, use the Ask PTB tab on the website or send an email to [email protected] and they may appear here soon!
This week’s words are:
Memory tips:
I am posting this to teach proofreading skills NOT as a political statement and I will not tolerate any comments on this blog regarding politics. They will be deleted. If you want to post about politics, there are plenty of places to do that, this just isn’t one of them. Thanks!
This headline recently showed up as “Breaking News” in my email:
Well, I had a feeling it wasn’t a “Board” Wall they were really discussing, so I clicked on the “Read More” and this is what the article headline actually looked like:
Again, I think this is a product of news outlets moving far too fast to be the first one out with the news and depending too much on spell check. Slow it down, people!
Follow