Grammar

I am approximately a quarter of the way through an excellent book. It’s not a novel, but a study on culture and religion. I was reading along, thoroughly enjoying myself, when I read ‘less then’ and lurched to an understandable halt. That was last week. I intend to pick it back up and continue, as there are highly fascinating things to learn and consider, but I know this book is imperfectly edited. Now if I read 30% somewhere I will have to take it with a grain of salt. Perhaps it’s 3%?

Incidentally, the book I picked up to rush through to take my mind off of such blunders held one far more traumatizing. It was a novel, and I read it yesterday. At the height of drama, the denouement, the heroine gets up from her chair, walks across the room, then grips the arms of her chair, and finally walks back to her mother. At this point I’m not crying because of the revelation, I’m beside myself, distracted to pieces at the confused motion sequence.

Finally, with all this rumbling around in my mind, I have to bring back the most egregious misuse of language I’ve seen by supposedly educated adult native English speakers. Notice that I have left heaps of room for my use of French, foreigners’ use of any language, and children on their way to learning. The Employee Handbook invariably is a mess of words, meanings and punctuation. At the last position I accepted, once I’d read the handbook I had a sinking feeling about the intelligence of my new employers. I learned to respect the knowledge that they did have, yet still have not shaken that disappointment for their disinterest in seeking (or accepting, as I offered back my edited copy) help where it was needed.

Am I really so hung up as to believe that editing is as important as content? Probably I am. If I’m to understand one’s logic and accept one’s characters and value one’s strictures, then I’ll just count on the courtesy of it being packaged nicely and neatly.