I don’t mean to be mean, but this is just unacceptable. A professional writer for Yahoo! Shine should know that meantime is one word (except Greenwich Mean Time, which is something else entirely). You can tell by her choice of words that her grasp of common English homophones is a bit wobbly:
Was she too busy to proofread? I’m not buying that excuse.
October 11, 2011 at 4:54 am
Hi Laura,
I appreciate you correcting the mistakes made on Yahoo! but what I don’t like is when you over-criticize them. When I got this post via e-mail, the title was “It’s a mean time, but I’m not buy it” and I’m sure you changed it before I got here. No one is above mistake.
October 11, 2011 at 7:14 am
You’re right: No one is perfect. Even I make mistakes
. But I’m just a hobby blogger, and when I make a mistake it reflects on only me. The writers and editors at Yahoo! are paid professionals whose work reflects on them, their superiors, and their employer, and they should be held to a higher standard since their work is seen by millions of readers. They have access to spell-checkers, grammar-checkers, professional colleagues and human editors. I rely on a spell-checker and my readers to help me find and eradicate my mistakes. Even with the support they have access to (but don’t seem to take advantage of), the Yahoo! folks have made as many as 50 mistakes in a single article. They have made tens of thousands of mistakes in the time I’ve been writing this blog. My readers have pointed out about a dozen of my errors in the same time. (And I thank every one of them for helping me!)
Misericodia, if you find more mistakes (and I’m sure you will) in Terribly Write, please let me know! I really am embarrassed when one is discovered in what I write. (There’s probably some in this reply.) And unlike Yahoo!ers, I correct my errors. Thanks for commenting; I really do appreciate the help of readers like you.
October 11, 2011 at 7:22 am
Thanks for replying Laura. I understand better now.