Shit History Undergrads Say - Woodrow Wilson's 'Fourteen Pants'

Anybody who has ever worked as a teacher knows how mind numbing the marking process can be. Just about every teacher has his or her own strategies for plowing through a mountain of exam papers or essays without completely losing their mind. As a former TA in 20th Century World History at the University of British Columbia, I've had to endure many an evening slogging my way through booklet after booklet of verbose regurgitations of in-class notes on Vimy Ridge and the sinking of the Lusitania or, even worse, intensely morbid essays on war atrocities that relished in every gory detail like a Saw movie.

What was my coping strategy? Generally a combination of beer and derision, specifically combing through exam papers and essays for the egregious and comical abuses of the English language. We've all been guilty of this, of course. We've all been in the position where we're frantically scribbling away in an exam booklet in the hope of half-blindly stumbling on enough correct points to get a decent mark. The result is generally a cornuccopia of wounded sentences, awkward constructions, breathtaking run-on-sentences (runs-on-sentence?), tautological assertions, and just flat out bizarre factual statements.

Here are some particularly good ones that I've been hanging onto some over the years for my own amusement. This is what you get when you're grasping at straws or trying to fill an exam booklet as quickly as possible.

Syntaxed To Death



Diplomacy, apparently

Hitler achieved economic, military and physical growth.

Mao was married at the age of 14 but his wife died three years later. Then Mao had countless relationships with many children.

The Soviet Union used diplomacy to invade Poland.

Suspekt Speling

The Colombian Navel fleet was busy stropping American ships.

Wilson is most famous for his “fourteen pants” which outlined the steps he felt needed to be taken.

Pubic opinion on the subject has varied over the course of history.

Mathematical Genius

Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler were considered one of the few greatest leaders that transformed their own countries in the early 20th Century.

In this way, both of them were one of the strongest countries in the Second World War.

Geography Fail

Japan resumed its expansionist policies, especially in the Middle East.

 
Going for Broke (a.k.a. Trying To Fill An Entire Exam Booklet)

More different than similar

Mao Zedong and Okonkwo [the main protagonist in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart] were more different than similar in many aspects. Being from different cultures, this is to be expected. They share some similarities, but it is evident that these two leaders did things and thought things differently from each other.

Throughout history, there have been many great people, and many more unknown people. There have been many who have done wonderful things, and many who have done nothing at all. And every person has different attitudes towards everything around him or her, and it is these attitudes that shape actions.

You Don't Say!

Perception is crucial in understanding history.

Educated guessing is a large component of media writing as the future is still open to any number of possibilities.

Throughout history, many events have occurred which have greatly impacted the world. Such events are also bound to keep happening.

Hyperbolic Overdrive

In Japan’s case, the “two-two-six” rebellion is one such crisis that led to Japan’s involvement in WWII, and the subsequent history of the world.

Say That Again??

These comparisons of documents and accounts provide a number of questions about the reliability and reasoning behind such discrepancies in the comparisons, establishing an understanding of the lengths the Great Leader would go in order to attain freedom for his people.

The means Hitler and Mao used to achieve leadership roles were similar and different in different ways. Hitler used threat, secret police and democracy.


Similar....yet different

When juxtaposed on a comparative perspective, the methods Hitler and Stalin, of Germany and the Soviet Union respectively, implemented on their rise and solidification in power are very similar.

These two situations are similar in that they are opposite.

Stalin didn’t want to get his country involved with silly things such as world conquest.

As we live, we make history. The present is the history of the future, and the past is the future of our contemporary time.

Meanwhile, the Russia country was governed by the communist party under the Stalin Regime.

His views, albeit firmly believed, are often objective in regards to the external concerns, and only become prejudiced when the conflict strikes and internal locus.

When Nwoye [the protagonist's son in Things Fall Apart] becomes a Christian, he and his father fall apart.

This forced a period of hardship on the people triggering the despair of poverty, the anguish of war and the tragedies of death.

Just as in human nature, agreements on major events in history are fraught with inconsistencies, untruths and confusion.

[The soldiers in WWI] didn’t need or want absolutely anything else other than some food, rest, shelter, and most importantly, of course, not to end up dead.

Win!

The author writes his memoirs of his visits to the Front because the worm (or curiosity) of context got into his ahistorical apple.

6 Reasons Why Everybody Thinks They're A Writer

Writers are an oft-depressed lot. Not only do they tend to spend a lot of time in isolation staring at a screen (and getting little physical activity), but they also have to contend with a world that by and large considers 'writing talent' to be about as rare and prized as right-handedness or an extensive knowledge of Internet porn. Writing, we are told, is not like, say, proficiency in graphic design, cardiology or jazz piano. In other words, it's something that given a high school education we can all do reasonably well.

As a professional writer and editor who has worked as a wordsmith of one sort or another for nearly a decade,I have always resented the notion that writing is somehow less skill-bound than other creative domains. While it is rarely spelled out to me so matter-of-factly as "Oh, anybody can write!" and indeed the praises of 'good writers' are often extolled, when it comes down to meeting production deadlines and cranking out copy, I have more than occasionally found my services bypassed on the pretext that "Well, we needed it done so we got Bob to do it, and you seemed busy. And Bob can do it just fine."

The problem with this rationale, of course, is that often Bob can't do it 'just fine'. Not that Bob is an idiot, or even a bad writer per se, but after eight years of wordcrafting and word-nerdery I am exactly the person you want to get those critical messages fine-tuned and positioned in exactly the right spots in the text, while ensuring that there are no awkward sentences, misplaced commas or references to 'pubic service'. (Trust me - I've seen it happen more than once.) Moreover, as a staff 'writer', it's my job to do this sort of thing, and the fact that I am appearing busy is not a reason to bypass me. After eight years as a professional writer, I work fast - and can get assignments done very quickly.

This is not to say that I'm the king of the written word, nor that I don't make mistakes. I've made more than my fair share in my writing career. I've committed egregious typos and acts of grammatical terrorism that have made it to print and still make me cringe today. (I won't give you specific examples because I hope to continue getting work with the publications in question, who I think haven't noticed yet.) I do go back and correct my blog posts, sometimes on numerous occasions. And even beyond this, I frequently think of better ways I could have phrased something after it's too late. (When it's too late? After it's too late sounds redundant doesn't it?) But I continue to get better with every year I spend doing this. As it is with brain surgery or plumbing, the more mistakes I make, the better I get at avoiding them.

But to return to the original topic, it is true that 'good' writing is often seen as something of a extra - not a frivolity exactly but a bonus that, while desirable, isn't of life-or-death importance. Which, to be fair, I suppose it is. After all, having a burst water main or a listeria outbreak at your airport is significantly worse than having a misplaced semicolon or a dangling modifier on the airport's web copy on shopping and dining offerings. And even if you're sticking to the creative professions, hideous graphic design on a pamphlet is invariably worse than convoluted syntax within the copy, as the graphic design in question will likely prevent readers from picking it up in the first place.

Nevertheless, poorly constructed writing will derail your communications, make your social media communication less effective and generally make your brand less good. And while I'm not saying that writing 'talent' is the exclusive purview of a certain noble breed of elected ones, it is the purview of people who have spent many years playing with words, sweating over syntax and generally fretting over crap that most people rarely think about. Us word people are not normal. Take one of us to a rock concert and our first reaction to the exultation "Rock on!" is to ask "On what?" Yep, we're freaks, but we're the freaks who keep your web and brochure content from going south,

Still, though, everybody on one level or another thinks they're a writer. Here is my personal theory on why that is.

1) We all do it in one form or another.

We write every day. We write grocery lists. We write angry letters to our neighbours for blasting Lynyrd Skynyrd out the window at 11:00 pm on a Tuesday. We help our children with their writing homework. And some of us write obnoxious blog posts purporting to explain why everybody thinks they're a writer. Not everybody fixes their car transmission on their own or designs a book cover. But everyone with a baseline level of literacy writes - and all the more so in the era of social media.

2) It's not generally taught on an extracurricular basis.

Writing isn't seen in the same light as, say, playing the violin or slam-dunking a basketball. And one important reason for this, I believe, is that with the exception of certain really nerdy kids, hardly anybody studies writing as an extracurricular activity - it's seen much more as a core subject that everybody learns. And the kids in writing clubs are probably mostly there to escape bullies; the writing is just a pretext.

3) Bad writing is often less immediately apparent than, say, bad music or bad drawing.

When a singer is hideously off-key or mangling the lyrics to the national anthem or something to that effect, it's generally quite apparent, as is egregiously bad visual design. Bad writing doesn't generally have the same effect. I suspect the reason for this is that at first glance writing on a page simply looks like writing on a page, and any badness therein does not become immediately apparent until you really, really read it. Which brings me to my fourth point, which is....

4) Most people don't really do that much reading.

Now before you protest, let me ask you this question. When was the last time you picked up a travel brochure at a tourist infocentre or on the brochure rack on a ferryboat and actually read the thing from start to finish - or even the lion's share of it? Unless we're actually sitting down to read a novel, most of us (and I don't necessarily exclude myself from this) are terribly lazy when it comes to actually reading and digesting the vast amount of content out there. This, I believe, leads to a devaluing - on some level - of the skills of the people who produce such content. But the fact of the matter is that without good copywriters, the key messages in boldface that you do actually pay attention to won't pop up, much to the detriment of the company in question.

5) Schools reinforce bad writing habits.

 PR Daily ran a great article recently on how schools inculcate really terrible writing habits among pupils. Such habits include shooting for length rather than conciseness, adherence to arcane grammatical rules like not starting sentences with the word 'and' (something I do all the time), and an unhealthy fixation on the introduction-thesis statement-body-conclusion structure. While these quirks in writing education don't necessarily undermine professional writers' respect out in the world, it does contribute to a general overconfidence in regards to writing know-how. "Oh, I know what the rules are." No, you probably don't.

6) Nowadays, everybody truly can be a writer - with a readership.

Thanks to Blogspost and other free blogging programs, anybody can start a blog. And many, many people do - including many who really shouldn't. No....I don't really mean that. In fact I think everybody should blog, because blogging on a regular basis is a great way to build up your writing chops and become the writer you know in your heart you could be. Because anyone can be a good writer. You just have to start out as a mediocre one and plod ahead.

10 Tips for Failsafe Proofreading

As a professional writer, editor and communications guy, I've done a hell of a lot of proofreading over the years. I've proofread just about every kind of document there is, from gigantic government policy papers to tiny event invitations and everything in between. I proofread my wife's writings, my current public relations class assignments, these blog posts and even my Facebook and Twitter posts before I press 'Send'.

This is not to say that I'm necessarily the world's most brilliant proofreader. Actually I'm not. I've had bad days or even weeks when I've let all kinds of egregious mistakes slip the net, sometimes in other people's work but more often in my own. There have been times when I've had to go back and edit my own blog posts after finding spelling mistakes and I've even deleted and reposted Facebook posts after that 'egad' moment where you catch a glaring typo a split second too late. I've even deleted misspelled Tweets ('Twuckups' as they're known), although you can never truly 'delete' a Tweet. Once it's out there, it's out there for good.

Nor do I particularly enjoy proofreading. Actually, it's one of my least favourite activities, down there with scraping frost off the car windows, cleaning the fridge and pulling the drawstring out from inside my swimsuit after a particularly rough journey through the washing machine. No, it's a pretty annoying job but I resign myself to it because the alternative is shoddy writing full of typos, syntax errors and dropped prepositions. It's not fun but it is worth it. Missed typos are like that big honking zit in the middle of your forehead that you know everyone is staring at but you can't do anything about.

Anybody who does a lot of proofreading is bound to have their own list of proofing tips. Here are my top ten, for what they're worth.

1)      Print it out first.

Trust me on this one - you'll catch more mistakes on paper than you will on the screen. Firstly, a printed copy is easier on the eyes - not to mention a faster read. And secondly, that shift in perspective from the screen to the page helps jog your mind and helps you focus on the actual words on the page. By all means do a first sweep on your computer with the changes tracked to catch the big stuff, but when it comes to spotting missing commas, dropped articles and spelling mistakes that your spellchecker won't find, you'll want it on paper.

2)      Proofread in a different room from where you usually work.

You may remember the famous scene in the movie Dead Poets Society when Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) commands his students to stand atop their desks in order to see the world around them from a different perspective. The same idea applies to proofreading. When I'm at work I will print the document and take it to a vacant office or the cafeteria (any room without a computer screen will do), which helps give me fresh perspective on my own work. If I'm editing freelance stuff at home, I'll go to a different room in the house - usually the kitchen table.

3)      Use a fine-tipped pen with a comfortable grip.

Nothing sets you off to a bad start at proofreading than having your first red mark soak through the page and slowly saturate the paper like an oil spill. A fine-tipped pen will help you avoid this problem, and if you're doing a lot of proofing you're going to want to invest in an ergonomic, easy-on-the-hand pen for the job.

4)      Read every single word to yourself.

Eventually the Devil will whisper into your ear that nothing is wrong, that there's no reason not to skip a word or two here and there. Don't do it. 

5)      Read it backwards, sentence by sentence.

The result of this will be that none of what you've written will make sense. That's kind of the point. Reading your work backwards sentence by sentence will help divorce the words from their intended meaning, leaving you with nothing but words and grammatical underpinnings, which is exactly what you're supposed to be focusing on. When I was working as a full-time English language copy editor in Tokyo, there would be days when I would finish my work day with absolutely no recollection of anything I had read that day because I was reading solely for grammar and not for content.

6)      If you listen to music, make it instrumental and non-intrusive.

Some people advise against listening to music at all while proofreading. Personally I find it helps relieve the tedium, but only if we're talking about non-intrusive ambient music. For proofreading listening, I personally like Brian Eno's Music for Airports, Ryuichi Sakamoto's solo piano music, electronic ear candy à la Boards of Canada and Autechre and anything by Bach, Erik Satie or Philip Glass. Music with lyrics is going to be distracting and suffice it to say, anything by a band with a misspelled name (i.e. Megadeth, Korn, Mötley Crüe) is a recipe for disaster.

7)      Give yourself little rewards.

If you're at work, promise yourself a coffee break, 10 minutes on Facebook or a round of Angry Birds after you're done. If you're at home, promise yourself a beer after you've finished. If you're looking at an entire afternoon proofreading heavy legal or financial documents, trust me - you'll need a drink afterwards!

(Note: Do not - I repeat - do NOT try to proofread while under the influence of alcohol! By all means drink while you write, as many of history's greatest wordsmiths have been fond of doing, but trying to proofread under any condition other than stone-cold sobriety is a complete waste of time.)

8)      Get all your proofing done before you input your changes.

A whole lot of back and forth will not only slow you down but it will also increase the likelihood of fresh errors. Get it all done on the page before you take it back to the computer. Treat your proofreading assignment like a crime scene - cordon it off and then comb the entire scene for evidence before you take it back to your crime lab for study.

9)      For the love of God, save your work!

This should go without saying, but I've been there and (not) done that.

10)   Write a blog post purporting to teach people how to do better proofreading.

Because you're really going to look like a total doofus if you purport to be an expert on proofreading and then commit conspicuous word bloopers of your own. As reader of this post, you're doubtless going to be looking extra hard for errors here. Good luck with that.

For further resources on proofreading, editing and wordsmithing in general, I highly recommend the site Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Typos and Other Pubic Embarrassments

10 proofreading shortcuts for the lazy copy editor

'Public' relations were never this man's forte.

During my two years as in-house copy editor and proofreader for the Japan Financial Services Agency, I had a vast swath of documents grace my desk. Most of them were deathly boring and totally forgettable, but every now and again I would get something memorable. One such occasion was when I was asked to proofread a series of thank-you letters from the JFSA addressed to the now dead and deposed Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, his then minister of finance and several other members of his government. (I can’t remember exactly what these were for but I think one or another Japanese bank was opening a branch in Tripoli.)

What I do remember very clearly was that one of the letters had an embarrassing misspelling of the word ‘public’. (This wasn’t in the letter to the Colonel himself but to one of his apparatchiks.) For an instant I was seriously tempted to let it pass, thinking that the letter might cause an incident within the Libyan government that might contribute to destabilizing the regime – this was back in 2007, well before the Arab Spring. But in the end I did my job and corrected the mistake. After all, I didn’t really want some innocent government translator with the Libyan government to get shot over something like this.

This wasn’t the first time I had seen ‘pubic’ in a document instead of ‘public’. In fact, in my many years of editing and proofreading I’ve made a habit of doing a word search for ‘pubic’, especially when I’m faced with a large document wherein things like this can easily get lost or overlooked. Spellcheckers have made us all lazier and egregious typos like this that once wouldn’t have stood a chance now escape capture on a regular basis. I was once editing a document for the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Association which made at least one reference to ‘unclear power’. Granted, in light of the Fukushima disaster, ‘unclear’ is a pretty apt description for this particular organization’s PR modus operandi, but as a professional proofer you can’t let that sort of thing pass.

Most of the typos that slip the net are less amusing than these, but no less embarrassing for a client – and the proofreader assigned to catch them. The best way to catch the common ones is through a word search. Here are ten words I often, if not always, search for in a large document before I even start the laborious process of proofreading.

1) Pubic / Public – Seriously, look for it. I’ve seen it more than twice and there’s no more embarrassing a typo in the English language.

2) Than / That – This is, of course, a more common word than ‘pubic’ and will take you more time, but it’s a very common mistake and one that’s easy to glance over. Trust me – I’ve made this mistake before.

3) Form / From – This is a typo in the same category as #2. The word ‘form’ is invariably going to be less common than ‘from’, so it makes sense to look up the former before the latter.

4) World / Word – This is a surprisingly common one. I think it’s because the letter ‘L’ is located right underneath the letter ‘O’ on the keyboard. I’ve seen this mistake go both ways, so both words are worth looking up.

5) An / And / Nad – This one will usually get underlined by your grammar checker, so it’s perhaps not as much of a priority, and it’s going to take you quite a while to sift through all the ‘an’s’ in a long document. Still, I’ve seen it slip the net more than once, so it might be worth your while. And while last time I checked ‘nad’ is not an officially accepted English word (except in the Beavis & Butthead universe), I have seen it in print before, in places where ‘and’ was obviously the intended word.

6) Allot / A lot – Most of us had this one drilled into us by high school English teachers enough that we no longer write 'alot' - and in any case your spellchecker will catch this one. Nevertheless, ‘allot’ with two L’s is a correct English word, and if you’re typing at breakneck speed trying to get through an assignment, it’s easy enough to type that instead of ‘a lot’.

7) Wed / We – Especially when you're tying fast and writing something like 'We did it' you're liable to end up typing 'Wed it it' or something like that. Worth looking for.

8) Tit / It – Yes, this is a fun one that’s definitely up there with ‘pubic’ in the embarrassment category. I’ve been doing word searches for this one ever since a university professor of mine told me a horror story involving this particular word and the introductory chapter of his doctoral thesis.

9) Massage / Message – Not quite as suggestive as ‘tit’ or ‘pubic’ but just as potentially embarrassing – and surprisingly common.

10) Defence / Licence / Centre / Honour etc. – If you’re from the US or any other jurisdiction that opts for American spellings in English, you can disregard this once. But if you’re from Canada or elsewhere in the Commonwealth and using Microsoft Word (which always seems to revert to American English), you’re going to want to look for these, as Word has a nasty habit of switching them automatically.

BONUS: Typo / Type – Trust me, you don't want to misspell the word 'typo'. That's just plane plain embarrassing.

For a look at the far-reaching economic impact of spelling mistakes, read this BBC article.