Text errors.

[rawhite]

First post, so this needs approval? Actually I'm *fine* if it's *not* approved. I don't particularly want this public. I'm not a meany-head.

I quite love our author's story-telling abilities, especially as he seems to grind them out at an alarming rate. However: The numerous errors in the text make my eyes bleed.

The really frustrating thing is that it'd take 5 minutes of work before publishing the book to correct 99% of the things that bother me, thus reducing the bleeding.
OK: 10 min, tops.

I shall now presume to outline how to do this.

30 sec: Grocer's Apostrophe.
Do a global search for the string "'s" (apostrophe s). Recall that you do not, Not, NOT pluralize a word with 's. (OK, so in some very rare cases, you do. Just assume that you don't have such a very rare case.)

60 sec: Lie/lay/laid.
Do a global search for the word "lay" and for "laying." At each occurrence, you can either stop and think carefully about the rules, or (faster), just assume that every use of the word "lay" is wrong, and should be "lie," and that "laying" should be "lying." You still may have errors, but vastly fewer.
After that (order here is important), search for the word "laid" and either think carefully about each use, or just assume it's wrong, and should be the word "lay".

~5 min. Homophones.
Search for these pairs of words and sort out which is correct. Slow, as this one really does need thought for each:
accept/except, accepted/excepted
it's/its
steel/steal
horde/hoard
course/coarse
your/you're

There are, of course, a lot of these, but those are the ones I can recall seeing. Interestingly, I've never seen a their/they're/there error. Huh.

Cheers,
--Bob

[PS Power]

All good points.

If you want to help with editing, each book is put up, here on the forum, for aid to be given that way.

There is one up right now, in fact. You can show me how it's done and at the same time save others from bleeding eyeballs! That's pretty significant, if it's really an issue for you.



*Seriously though, all of what you said is always done. All of it. Every time. Making one or two mistakes on a given thing isn't the same as not knowing how to write.

For instance, yes, I might have used the wrong version of too/to in a work. Did you notice the seven hundred times I did it right though? No, no one ever does... Sigh.

It's always read things from ten years ago, when I had no backing or help at all, and then act as if every error is a sign of mental deficiency. Sorry, I can't hire a ten thousand dollar editing crew for every book. You'll have to put up with six errors instead of the two you would get from the big five efforts.

That, or help out and make those go away too?

Hmm? Hmmm?

Sounds like a plan to me!

[rawhite]

Oh! Hi! Thanks for the response, Sir!

Yeah, I've not looked at publication dates, so perhaps you're right about it being mostly older works. And, yeah. I've no doubt you know the rules, actually. At least in my imagination, getting the story told and the words down is hard enough without stopping to think about grammar.

And you're saying I should stop whining, and help? I shall!!
I just "arrived" here and don't know my way around, but I expect I can find the current book. I'll likely not be any help with plot holes or inconsistencies: I'm quite good at the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing, and kinda hurl myself in and enjoy the ride. I shall, however, try to help with the grammatical trivia.

Cheers,
Bob

[MarciaA]

Hello Bob and welcome to the forum. The first post approval is because the site was being overloaded with spammers. It became extremely annoying! And time consuming to clean up on the daily. This way allows us to filter those out before everyone else has to see it.

[rawhite]

Hi MarciaA,

Oh, I totally understand. Thanks for the approval. Now that I am in, of course, I can tell you all about an incredible money-making opportunity!!

No. Wait. I should wait until you lower your guard a bit more.

Cheers,
--Bob

[ArgyrosfeniX]

Welcome from me too Bob!



Brent / Argy / ArgyrosfeniX