Two-Fisted Editor

[thessalian]

Doctors are intelligent people. They pretty much have to be, to get through med school. I have nothing against doctors, really. I don't even have anything against doctors who obviously didn't qualify in this country; prejudice is not my style, and foreign accents aren't that hard to render once you get used to the speaker's particular ways of pronouncing things. However ... I really wish the ones whose first language isn't English would take pity of those of us in this English-speaking country whose first language is, in fact, English and ... you know, use it correctly.

It takes me no time at all to audio type, really; what takes the time is reparsing what I'm hearing so that it's coherent. The constant, unnecessary and occasionally inappropriate use of the passive voice and the split infinitives are one thing - sometimes that's stylistic issues that just make my brain hurt, and while I'll change it for brevity, I acknowledge that it's a valid means of expression. However, there are the conjugation issues - pity's sake, people, pick a verb tense and stick to it! Preferably the appropriate one for the job at hand. And sometimes the sentences are just so badly constructed that I have to type out the whole thing in all its ungrammatical glory before I can parse it well enough to fix it.

I'm not really just a typist. I am an editor. I take the perfectly understandable mistakes of someone who has not paid the remotest bit of attention to how English grammar works and sort of makes it up as they go along and I turn it into legible prose on the fly. I basically keep perfectly intelligent people who just happen not to be au fait with the language from looking like complete morons to their peers.

And to think, I failed English grammar the one time I took it in high school.*

In other news, there is not much other news. I'm booked solid RP-wise until Sunday (Thursday - conversation with Jack, gods help me; Friday - therealsherbs wants a scene with my mortal and I sense doom; Saturday - Midsummer Tourney at the Court of the Bard, all interspersed with whatever else needs to get settled in other arenas, more or less), when I will be taking a break from all that to have a bit of a horrorfest with dodgyhoodoo. And possibly some attempted levelling of some FFXI job or other over the weekend. I could level BRD, I suppose - now that there's nomad moogles in Selbina, it's not so much of an utter and complete bitch to try to get to the Dunes and level. Either way, I'm thinking moochunks on Sunday - simple and tasty, as it were.

...It does amaze me how much I can overplan a weekend that basically involves "Oh, you know ... just faff, really".

* = Yes, I know it sounds ridiculous. However, fact is I only ever studied grammar in French, owing to the French Immersion programme I was saddled with in elementary school. I can construct a grammatically viable sentence perfectly well, but can't deconstruct one to save my life. And when we did a unit on grammar in my American high school - the only time we were ever going to study it, apparently - I was a little lost and went to my English teacher for help. My English teacher hated me and refused to help me, I got a few things backwards and flunked the quarter. This is what kept me out of Advanced English Lit in 10th grade. I hated that man.

Comments

[adelpha.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about being able to put a sentence together, but not pull it apart. Certain things sound right or wrong to me, but it's more of a feeling rather than knowing the rules. I can't remember being taught much English grammar, beyond what a noun, verb, adverb and adjective are, and where to put some of the dots and squiggles. I think I learned more about it from studying German.

Not sure if I'll be able to get my character ready for Saturday. I'll try to poke it tonight, but I really need an early night. On the other hand, if I get stuck at Amsterdam airport for ages then I can give it a try there.

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

You have a mortal? Since when?

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

Since ... I think she was approved on Tuesday.

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

Thank you. mitchy keeps laughing at me because I rolled up a Project Twilight agent.

I think I'm going to go hide over there now...

[the-blonde-one.livejournal.com]

That might be because PT Agents have a L.E. roughly equivalent to Viet Nam front line tower guards.

Though I could be misremembering.

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

...*whimper* Poor little researcher. So bright. So innocent. So very very doomed.