English usage: Is it increment OR inclement weather?

[Article Accelerator]

kap wrote:
I still have trouble with "trouble-shoot"

That's troubleshoot. No hyphen.

[decay]

is that like a crap-shoot?

[kap]

Article Accelerator wrote:
[quote=kap]
I still have trouble with "trouble-shoot"

That's troubleshoot. No hyphen.
See what I meant?

[Lew Zealand]

kap wrote:
[quote=Article Accelerator]
[quote=kap]
I still have trouble with "trouble-shoot"

That's troubleshoot. No hyphen.
See what I meant?
That's the problem when a language is derived from a half dozen other ones. And kap I never ID'd you as a non-native speaker (OK: typer). Either you do quite well or I'm unobservant.

Yeah yeah, or both.

[Janit]

Lew Zealand wrote:
That's the problem when a language is derived from a half dozen other ones. And kap I never ID'd you as a non-native speaker (OK: typer). Either you do quite well or I'm unobservant.
Yeah yeah, or both.

No, you're just not a professional editor. If you do enough editing, you begin to recognize a variety of patterns in people's deviation from "standard" English. Kap occasionally slips up on tense agreement and verb forms in ways that are characteristic of ESL, though his errors are very rare.

An interesting game is to try deducing a writer's first language from the kinds of errors they make in English. (Yes, yes, I know I have chosen to use the dread third-person-plural-pronoun-as-a-singular for the sake of gender neutrality.)

[RAMd®d]

...is it wrong for me to be aroused by your post?!

The one thing that really, really bothers me about web logs and web log authors with no other experience but web logging wanting to be known as journalists, is that most of them don't know what a copy editor is.

When their "journalism" is sloppy enough that even I see errors, then they should be considering another line of work. I *do* realized that there are actual journalists who also have web logs. I'm just not willing to bestow that title and honor to anybody and everybody that has a little kiosk on the Internet.

And when I read the subject line, I was disappointed to see that rz beat me to the joke.

[kap]

I have always been a reader. However, for the past 10 years I have done much reading on the web. When it is not obvious, i.e. letters from Ethiopian scammers or CL sellers there lies the difficulty of distinguishing the good writings from the bad ones as I still have much to learn.

[Janit]

RAMd®d wrote:
...is it wrong for me to be aroused by your post?!

OMG! Grammar porn -- I've just invented a new genre. Do you think there's any money in it?