There is hope after all

Ryminia · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2004 8:21 am

"6,700 expected to graduated in Cobb"
Lucky me! The primary regional paper here.Hey, maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will hire me right out of college after all.JessicaN
Briefly coming out of lurkdom

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2004 11:35 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by JessicaN:

Hey, maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will hire me right out of college after all.
<hr></blockquote>Be careful what you wish for.[ May 20, 2004: Message edited by: blanp ]

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2004 2:25 pm

My mother, who lives in Atlanta, regularly sends me clippings from the AJC with errors and typos circled. "Why didn't you ever get a job there?" she asks. "They need copy editors."Incidentally, a couple years ago the AJC ran a "copy-editing" test so readers could "understand" what copy editors do. It had 10 relatively simple questions, mainly of the grizzly/grisly homophone variety. They invited readers to submit their answers.The only people who sent in a slate of 10 correct answers were two former copy editors.[ May 20, 2004: Message edited by: Matthew Grieco ]

Ryminia · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2004 3:12 pm

When I was an undergraduate, I took a communications/writing class in which our professor offered bonus points to us when we brought in news publications with grammatical errors marked. After the first few weeks she banned the school paper and the AJC from use because it was too easy to rack up bonus points with them. She also increased the point value of a Wall Street Journal error, since those were more difficult to find.Based on Georgia's public school performance, I'm theorizing that the AJC is merely mirroring the state's education level with its errors. Sounds logical, eh?

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Thu May 20, 2004 5:11 pm

I went to a public high school in Georgia. It's a wonder I can think at all.

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Fri May 21, 2004 12:43 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Matthew Grieco:
I went to a public high school in Georgia. It's a wonder I can think at all.<hr></blockquote>If you can properly punctuate "y'all," you're one up on most Suthunahs.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 12:01 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
If you can properly punctuate "y'all," you're one up on most Suthunahs.<hr></blockquote>Oed, I think that's a little offensive.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 12:25 pm

I'm not offended, since I'm not a Southerner. I was a temporary Yankee transplant, now back on my preferred side of the Mason-Dixon.

Ryminia · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 2:03 pm

I'm not offended either. I might as well be a Southerner, since I've lived down here three-quarters of my life.But when you're right, you're right. Most people don't know how to write that out.Are you trying to say that it's not a legitimate third person plural of "you"?

Chriss · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 2:36 pm

I was offended at first, but then I remembered I could punctuate "y'all" at age 5. I think it was age 6 when I could properly spell "Southerner."

Oeditpus Rex · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 7:41 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Chriss:
I was offended at first, but then I remembered I could punctuate "y'all" at age 5. I think it was age 6 when I could properly spell "Southerner."<hr></blockquote>As a native Kollyforniyan, I'm impressed.
<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by JessicaN:
Are you trying to say that it's not a legitimate third person plural of "you"?<hr></blockquote>Hardly. My folks were born and raised in southeast Arkansas, so I grew up with "y'all" et al -- and I still often say I'm "fixin' to" do something. My point was, if "y'all" is a fixture of your speech, you should know that it's not spelled "ya'll," as many apparently think.

Mort · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 8:41 pm

Nothing sends me into a blind rage faster than reading "ya'll."

JPSheehan · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 9:26 pm

Anybody here from Pittsburgh? Don't get those Three Rivers folk goin about "y'uns" -- however the hell it's spelled.

JPSheehan · **Posted:** Mon May 24, 2004 9:26 pm

Anybody here from Pittsburgh? Don't get those Three Rivers folk goin about "y'uns" -- however the hell it's spelled.

SusanV · **Posted:** Tue May 25, 2004 11:17 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by JPSheehan:
Anybody here from Pittsburgh? Don't get those Three Rivers folk goin about "y'uns" -- however the hell it's spelled.<hr></blockquote> Well, it's pronounced more like yunz (and the u is like an oo in, say, foot). Somewhere I still have an old AP story about western Pennsylvania and its odd lingo. I can dig it up if you're interested.[ May 25, 2004: Message edited by: SusanV ]

Jim Bond · **Posted:** Wed May 26, 2004 12:55 pm

If you can properly punctuate "y'all," you're one up on most Suthunahs. 
On a related note, I just can't stand it when people from the Northwest can't spell Puyallup.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Wed May 26, 2004 6:36 pm

The plural of you is yous (pronounced ewes). A sad but true fact of popular, non-standard Australian and New Zealand English. No sheep jokes please.

EMorse · **Posted:** Wed May 26, 2004 8:46 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Paul Wiggins:
The plural of you is yous (pronounced ewes). A sad but true fact of popular, non-standard Australian and New Zealand English. No sheep jokes please.<hr></blockquote>"Yous" is also a fact of popular and pretty much standard South Philadelphia English. Mafia jokes entirely welcome.

KfitzR · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 8:37 am

My high school home ec teacher referred to us as yous in the singular [pronounced "use"]. When she meant more than one of us, she used "youses." [prounounced "uses"] This from New Brunswick, Canada.

fork · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 11:16 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by KfitzR:
My high school home ec teacher referred to us as yous in the singular [pronounced "use"]. When she meant more than one of us, she used "youses." [prounounced "uses"] This from New Brunswick, Canada.<hr></blockquote>
My upstate New York English (yes, English) teacher once said: "Yous kids ain't going nowhere without learning your grammar." She was not joking, that is the way she spoke. Yous was pronounced "Use" and your was pronounced "yer"

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 12:52 pm

Let's not slander upstate New York, which has enough troubles. The English teacher was just an idiot, which explains why she was a high school English teacher.

contrarysounding · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 1:25 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
The English teacher was just an idiot, which explains why she was a high school English teacher.<hr></blockquote>Whoa! Maybe it was a fluke, but almost all of the English teachers at my high school in the Rockies were fantastic, and any college students would have been lucky to have them. (And I'd pit their grammar sense against Safire's any day!)

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 1:34 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by contrarysounding:
Whoa! Maybe it was a fluke, but almost all of the English teachers at my high school in the Rockies were fantastic ....<hr></blockquote>It was a fluke.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 4:08 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by contrarysounding:
Whoa! Maybe it was a fluke, but almost all of the English teachers at my high school in the Rockies were fantastic, and any college students would have been lucky to have them. (And I'd pit their grammar sense against Safire's any day!)<hr></blockquote>Guess you never had to read Ethan Frome.

SusanV · **Posted:** Thu May 27, 2004 6:14 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by ADKbrown:
Guess you never had to read Ethan Frome.<hr></blockquote>
I am beginning to think I am the only person on this planet who actually liked that book.

Ryminia · **Posted:** Fri May 28, 2004 6:34 am

I would have liked Ethan Frome if I hadn't had an arguement with my 11th grade English teacher about the symbolic meaning of the pickle dish that Maggie breaks. After a B.A. in Literature and mind-numbing, slightly scary classes in literary criticism I have the same opinion on that stoopid dish now as I did ten years ago. Aside from the pickle dish disagreement, I liked that teacher very much--I had her for two of my honors classes in high school. She was the kind of curmudgeon dragon-lady I want to grow into when I hit my sixties.

Lee · **Posted:** Fri May 28, 2004 7:12 am

Ã¾a cild ... yous kidsI took old English at uni. It's Germanic and makes much more sense than modern English.

Lee · **Posted:** Fri May 28, 2004 7:25 am

Saddam Hussein wearÃ° gefangen!
Ã†t nigoÃ°re-healfe tÃd Ã¦fter middandÃ¦ge wearÃ° Saddam gefangen. Americanisce fÃ©Ã°an fÃ©ngon Ã¾one Saddam beardhÃ¦bbendne and unclǽnne. HÃ© hÃ½dde hine in undergrundum hole. HÃ© hÃ½dde "swÃ¡ rÃ¦t" in hole, sÃ¦gdon lÃ©ode.
(not my translation, but an example of OE copy-editing)[ May 28, 2004: Message edited by: Lee ]

KfitzR · **Posted:** Fri May 28, 2004 1:25 pm

What a delight! It has been so long since I have stumbled across such pure Anglo-Saxon words.

Jackie · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2004 6:24 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Oeditpus Rex:
...... and I still often say I'm "fixin' to" do something.<hr></blockquote>Someone who still says that besides me! Yesssssss!

EditThis · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2004 8:33 pm

I got teased for many things in elementary school -- being ugly, being poor, being a genius -- but for nothing so much as pronouncing the "g" at the end of "fixing." Even the teachers got in on it. It never occurred to them that I was trying to talk Southern by saying "fixing" in the first place.

EMorse · **Posted:** Sun May 30, 2004 10:26 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
The English teacher was just an idiot, which explains why she was a high school English teacher.<hr></blockquote>... meanwhile, in Colorado Springs:The Gazette in Colorado Springs (95K daily; 112K Sunday) is seeking a copy editor for its 11-member night desk. Top candidates will have a minimum of three years of editing experience with a daily newspaper; clips showing crisp, vivid headlines; encyclopedic knowledge of the Associated Press Stylebook; and the heart of an English teacher (http://www.journalismjobs.com/Job_Listi ... bID=406301)... I have the heart of an English teacher. It keeps me up at night, thumping away under the floorboards ...

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