For several years, it seemed as though the book industry was getting a reprieve. As the music industry was ravaged by file sharing, and the film and TV industry were increasingly targeted by downloaders, book piracy was but a quaint cul de sac in the vast file sharing ecology. The tide, however, may be changing. Ereaders have become mainstream, making reading ebooks palatable to many more readers. Meanwhile, technology for scanning physical books and breaking the DRM on ebooks has continued to advance.
A recent study by Attributor, a firm that specializes in monitoring content online, came to some spectacular conclusions, including the headline claim that book piracy costs the industry nearly $3 billion, or over 10% of total revenue. Of all the conclusions in the Attributor study, this one seemed the most outlandish, and the study itself might be met with some skepticism since Attributor is in the business of charging companies to protect their content from the threat of piracy.
Nonetheless, the study, which monitored 913 titles on several popular file hosting sites, did point to a level of activity that suggested illegal downloading of books was becoming more than just a niche pastime. Even if the various extrapolations that led to the $3-billion figure are easy to poke holes in, Attributor still directly counted 3.2 million downloaded books.
For some, however, the study may inspire more questions than answers. Who are the people downloading these books? How are they doing it and where is it happening? And, perhaps most critical for the publishing industry, why are people deciding to download books and why now? I decided to find out, and after a few hours of searching – stalled by a number dead links and password protected sites – I found, on an online forum focused on sharing books via BitTorrent, someone willing to talk.
He lives in the Midwest, he’s in his mid-30s and is a computer programmer by trade. By some measures, he’s the publishing industry’s ideal customer, an avid reader who buys dozens of books a year and enthusiastically recommends his favorites to friends. But he’s also uploaded hundreds of books to file sharing sites and he’s downloaded thousands. We discussed his file sharing activity over the course of a weekend, via email, and in his answers lie a critical challenge facing the publishing industry: how to quash the emerging piracy threat without alienating their most enthusiastic customers. As is typical of anonymous online communities, he has a peculiar handle: “The Real Caterpillar.” This is what he told me:
The Millions: How active are you. How many books have you uploaded or downloaded?
The Real Caterpillar: In the past month, I have uploaded approximately 50 books to the torrent site where you contacted me. I am much less active then I once was. I used to scan many books, but in the past two years I have only done a few. Between 2002-2005 I created around 200 ebooks by scanning the physical copy, OCRing and proofing the output, and uploading them to USENET. I generally only upload content that I have scanned, with some exceptions. I have been out of the book scene for a while, concentrating on rare and out of print movies instead of books because it is much easier to rip a movie from VHS or DVD than to scan and proof a book.
I have downloaded a couple thousand ebooks via USENET and private torrent sites.
TM: Do you typically see scanned physical books or ebooks where the DRM has been broken?
TRC: Most of what I have seen is scanned physical books. Stephen King’s Under the Dome was the first DRM-broken book I downloaded knowingly.
TM: Why have you gone this route as opposed to using a library or buying books? Do you consider this “stealing” or is it a gray area?
TRC: I own around 1,600 physical books, maybe a third of which were bought new, the rest used. I buy many hardcovers in a given year and generally purchase more books than I end up reading, so I have not chosen to collect electronic books as opposed to paper books but in addition to them. My electronic library has about a 50% crossover with my physical library, so that I can read the book on my electronic reader, “loan” the book without endangering my physical copy, or eventually rid myself of the paper copy if it is a book I do not have strong feelings about.
I do not buy DRM’d ebooks that are priced at more than a few dollars, but would pay up to $10 for a clean file if it was a new release.
I do not pretend that uploading or downloading unpurchased electronic books is morally correct, but I do think it is more of a grey area than some of your readers may. Perhaps this will change as the Kindle and other e-ink readers make electronic books more convenient, but the Baen Free Library is an interesting experiment that proves that at least in that case, their business was actually enhanced by giving away their product free. That is probably not a business model that will work for everyone, but what is shows is that as a company they have their ear to the ground and are willing to think in new directions and take chances instead of putting their fingers in their ears, closing their eyes, and railing against their customers, as the
music industry is doing. The world is changing and business models have to change with it.
Three additional points:
1) With digital copies, what is “stolen” is not as clear as with physical copies. With physical copies, you can assign a cost to the physical product, and each unit costs x dollars to create. Therefore, if the product is stolen, it is easy to say that an object was stolen that was worth x dollars. With digital copies, it is more difficult to assign cost. The initial file costs x dollars to create, but you can make a million copies of that file for no cost. Therefore, it is hard to assign a specific value to a digital copy of a work except as it relates to lost sales.
2) Just because someone downloads a file, it does not mean they would have bought the product I think this is the key fact that many people in the music industry ignore – a download does not translate to a lost sale. I own hundreds of paper copies of books I have e-copies of, many of which were bought after downloading the e-copy. In other cases I have downloaded books I would never have purchased, simply because they were recommended or sounded interesting.
3) Just because someone downloads a file, it doesn’t mean they will read it. I realize that buying a book doesn’t mean someone is going to read it either, but clicking a link and paying $10-$30 is very different – many more people will download a book and not read it than buy a book and not read it.
In truth, I think it is clear that morally, the act of pirating a product is, in fact, the moral equivalent of stealing… although that nagging question of what the person who has been stolen from is missing still lingers. Realistically and financially, however, I feel the impact of e-piracy is overrated, at least in terms of ebooks.
TM: How easy is it to go online and find a book you’re looking for? How long does it take to download and how much technical expertise is required?
TRC: I have specific tastes, so it is usually not very easy to find specifically what I am looking for. The dearth of material I was interested in is what prompted me to scan in the past, in order to share some of my favorite, less popular authors with as many people as possible. It does not take much time to download once something you want has been found, however, and little technical experience is required.
Since books are generally very small files, they can be downloaded in minutes. You can then convert the file using one of many applications, for instance Mobipocket Creator, to PRC or another format that works with your reader. You can then plug your Kindle into your computer and copy the file over. The entire process typically takes 5-10 minutes.
BitTorrent technology is easy to install and use, and just about anyone can install the basic software needed and begin downloading their first torrent in less than an hour. However, discovering and gaining access to private torrent sites (invite only) can take a lot of time – and of course, that is where the good stuff is. Public sites (no account needed) and semi-private sites (sites that require an account, but usually have open enrollment) have a limited selection, but are easily accessible and anyone with basic computer skills can find and download very popular novels.
Usenet is an older technology, and is considered a safer place to pirate files. For older users like me who were around at the beginning of the internet it seems very simple, but to newer computer users it may seem unnecessarily complex, and more expensive because you need an account separate from your regular internet connection to access it.
TM: Once you’ve downloaded a book, what format is it in and how do you read it? On you computer? Printed out?
TRC: My preferred format for distribution is RTF because it holds metadata such as italics, boldfaces, and special characters that TXT does not, is easily converted to other formats using Word, cannot contain a virus, and is an open format that will be readable forever. Other popular formats are DOC, HTML, PDF, LIT (Microsoft Reader), PRC (Palm), MOBI (Palm), CBR (rar’d image files) – and there is a new format with each new reader that is released. Most formats can be converted to your preferred format with enough ingenuity or the
correct software.
To read, I convert to PRC and load the books onto my Kindle. Before I got that, I read on my Palm or laptop.
TM: How long does it take you to scan a physical book?
TRC: The scanning process takes about 1 hour per 100 scans. Mass market paperbacks can be scanned two pages at a time flat on the scanner bed, while large trades and hardcovers usually need to be scanned one page at a time. I’m sure that some of the more hardcore scanners disassemble the book and run it through an automatic feeder or something, but I prefer the manual approach because I’d like to save the book, and don’t want to invest in the tools. Usually I can scan a book while watching a movie or two.
Once scanned, the output needs to be OCR’d – this is a fairly quick process using a tool like ABBYY FineReader.
The final step is the longest and most grueling. I’ve spent anywhere from 5 to 40 hours proofing the OCR output, depending on the size of the book and the quality of type in the original. This can be done in your OCR tool side-by-side with the scan of the original image or separately in your final output type (RTF, DOC, HTML, etc.). If there are few errors on the first few pages of text my preference is to proof in RTF, otherwise I do the proof within Finereader itself.
TM: What types of books do you look for? What is generally available? Is any fiction or popular non-fiction available?
TRC: I restrict my downloads to books I will likely read – this includes some popular novels, literary novels, and general non-fiction such as humor, biography, science, sociology, etc. Unlike DVD rips, the newest releases are not typically available two weeks before the product is released, if at all. I’m assuming that this is due to the smaller devoted audience books have, as well as the increased difficulty of sharing a book.
TM: Do you have a sense of where these books are coming from and who is putting them online?
TRC: I assume they are primarily produced by individuals like me – bibliophiles who want to share their favorite books with others. They likely own hundreds of books, and when asked what their favorite book is look at you like you are crazy before rattling of 10-15 authors, and then emailing you later with several more. The next time you see them, they have a bag of 5-10 books for you to borrow.
I’m sure that there are others – the compulsive collectors who download and re-share without ever reading one, the habitual pirates who want to be the first to upload a new release, and people with some other weird agenda that only they understand.
TM: Is it your sense that a lot of people are out there looking to get books this way? Or is it just a tiny group?
TRC: I would say that there is a small unaffiliated “group” of people responsible for sourcing the material.
Also, keep in mind that everything I’m saying applies mostly to fiction and general-interest non-fiction.
Textbook, programming and technical manuals are all over the place and its very easy to obtain almost anything you want. I assume there are more sources for that material, and that their high price is a larger factor in people deciding to pirate them. Similarly, there are many communities creating comic, graphic novel and magazine content of whom I am only vaguely aware.
TM: Do you worry at all about getting in trouble for scanning and uploading ebooks?
TRC: A little, but the books I do are typically not bestsellers and are rarely new. I figure I have a bit of a buffer if trouble comes down because the Stephen King or Nora Roberts or “whoever the latest bestseller is” scanners would be the ones to get hit first. I’ve done a lot of out-of-print stuff, and when it is not out of print it’s books by authors like John Barth – someone who no longer sells very well, I imagine.
I’ve debated doing some newer authors and books, but I would need to protect myself better and resolve the moral dilemma of actually causing noticeable financial harm to the author whose work I love enough to spend so much time working on getting a nice e-copy if I were to do so.
TM: What changes in the ebook industry would inspire you to stop participating in ebook file sharing?
TRC: This is a tough question. I guess if every book was available in electronic format with no DRM for reasonable prices ($10 max for new/bestseller/omnibus, scaling downwards for popularity and value) it just wouldn’t be worth the time, effort, and risk to find, download, convert and load the book when the same thing could be accomplished with a single click on your Kindle. Even in this situation, I would probably still grab a book if I stumbled across the file and thought it might interest me – or if I wanted to check it out before buying a paper copy.
I was impressed by the Indie filmmakers of the movie “Ink” – when their movie leaked before the DVD was released, they put a donation button on their site doubleedgefilms.com. I donated even though I haven’t watched the movie yet, just because of their thoughtfulness and sincerity. This didn’t seem to work for King’s “The Plant“, but I think that had a lot to do with the lack of reading technology at the time. I would like to see the experiment tried again by someone like Eggers or Murakami – someone with a very devoted fanbase.
Perhaps if readers were more confident that the majority of the money went to the author, people would feel more guilty about depriving the author of payment. I think most of the filesharing community feels that the record industry is a vestigal organ that will slowly fall off and die – I don’t know to what extent that feeling would extend to publishing houses since they are to some extent a different animal. In the end, I think that regular people will never feel very guilty “stealing” from a faceless corporation, or to a lesser extent, a multi-millionaire like King.
One thing that will definitely not change anyone’s mind or inspire them to stop are polemics from people like Mark Helprin and Harlan Ellison – attitudes like that ensure that all of their works are available online all of the time.
[Image credit: Patrick Feller]
And here I thought sex appeal was predicated on noun antecedent agreement.
Some quick (hopefully grammatical) thoughts:
a.) Have noticed a steep decline in accuracy over the last ten years in books, magazines, etc. I find it sad, and imagine a flotilla of laid-off proofreaders, fact checkers, and editors all sailing into the Bermuda Triangle, arguing passionately about the proper use of “shall” vs. “may.”
b.) I’ve worked with some folks who aren’t primarily writers, but are stuck having to write something anyway. I think there’s something to be said for “rigor,” taking the time to obey the basics of grammar and checking your spelling. It sends a message under the radar to the person receiving your communication.
c.) There’s nothing wrong with a stylistic decision to “break the rules” when you think it improves your flow. The problem is laying an egg with deliberate goofs such as “Cease” the Day, “Caviar Emptor,” etc.
d.) Orwell’s essay is wonderful and well-worth reading. Very ironic to be afraid of appearing elitist or snobby if you take an interest in good grammar and verbal precision. That’s much too simplistic. The danger Orwell warns of is the risk of being bamboozled by messages created by a power “elite” (who are very aware of the tools they are using) to keep the masses under control.
I agree with Moe. There are far too many errors in all kinds of published material released today. Whether it is a Burger King ad, a magazine article, a newspaper website, or even a novel released by major publisher, almost everything seems to have mistakes these days. It’s almost like no one cares anymore. Too many writers/editors are rushing to get things published that there is not enough quality control.
One very quick response, related to Mr. Tower’s comment that “no one care anymore.”
About ten years ago, there was a group of “official” condolence letters sent out to families of soldiers killed in Iraq. They were cheap copies, with a computer-generated signature by some high-level mucky-muck, and contained several proofing errors. The “message” these letters conveyed was primarily one of indifference and contempt. It would have been better not to have sent them at all. I often use this as an example with students of what “not” to do.
[My comment, last two lines: “often use this as an example with students of what “not” to do.]
I think this might be a little “off” but I like the sound it makes. If it was a quart of milk, it would likely have a January 6 “use by” date.
I thought about writing a longer reply, but the writers at the Language Log have said it better and more thoroughly than I ever could. Read everything under the tag “Prescriptivist Poppycock.” I think you’ll find that in several places in your essay, you’re complaining about “usage” rather than grammar.
Uh oh. That sounds like the home turf of the linguistics folk. They scoff at grammarians and flay, slice, and dine on the tender flesh of the novelists and playwrights. God forbid what would happen to a poet who made a wrong left turn and ended up over there!
Moe Murph
(Secretly Fears She’ll Never Figure Out the Difference Between Grammar and Usage)
I’ve translated my frustration into cash. A surprising number of people have purchased the mugs, plates, and greeting cards to affirm their superiority or to passive-aggressively correct a friend with a grammar gift.
http://www.grammarstuff.com
[Re: On the spectrum of world problems that need bemoaning, is bad grammar really one of them? Yes. Yes it is.]
“Grammar is not a time of waste.”
Bart Simpson
Stateless Springfield Resident/
US Envoy to
Canadian National Grammar Rodeo (1996)
“Fast forward twenty years and I am seeing these same people advertise themselves on OkCupid. I love to travel. Its just my thing. Reluctant non-conformist, verging on the anarchist. AKA, “a prick”. Aka a truant, since this guy obviously skipped that class on punctuation and its placement.”
Are you sure these people aren’t Canadian or British, though? Not to defend people who call themselves non-conformists because personally I find that insufferable, but in most British-influenced schools, punctuation is more likely to go outside of quotation marks if it isn’t an actual part of what you’re quoting.
The lack of apostrophe in “its” I have no excuse for, of course.
It’s not clear to me whether Ms. Maazel actually means “degradation of our culture” when she writes “depredation of our culture,” though I rather suspect she does. If so, she confirms the maxim that every article or comment decrying errors in spelling, usage, grammar, or semantics itself contains an error in spelling, usage, grammar, or semantics.
For me, the worst offender right now is Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia. Their advertising slogan is:
LIVE FEARLESS.
In the words of Dave Barry, I am not making this up: http://www.ibx.com/htdocs/custom/advertising/2013.html
With radio ads proclaiming the “Faces of Fearless,” all this is doing is teaching Philadelphians (who were never rocket scientists to start) that it is all right to sound like an ignorant nut.
@Cappio — Maazel isn’t decrying accidental typos. She’s decrying what she observes to be a systematic decline in communicative precision presenting itself with deplorable frequency. But you probably knew that.
I’ve learned to quash most of my rage about bad grammar or usage or spelling OR WHATEVER since typos are inevitable and so much of what is “right” is in fact arbitrary. Grammar, after all, is supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Or so my linguistic anthropology classes would have us believe.
However, aggressively bad copy-editing is a whole different animal. Movie titles that eschew hyphens, the Fatburger sign that is selling some item for “$5 dollars,” newspapers and blogs that don’t proof themselves, the Burger King ad you show above–that’s ad agencies telling us that the language they use isn’t worth their time to perfect, or it’s copywriters being paid to suck. And that’s just frigging offensive.
Excellent synthesis (grammar, linguistics, and plain common sense)! Love your comment, Skiki!
People who frequent the Millions site are word-people. Slovenly drafting would rightly be as irritating to them as badly poured beer to a great bartender or sloppy joints to a master carpenter.
Depredation or degradation? Let’s compare!
“Bad prose writing heralds the [plundering/ravaging of|attack on] our culture.”
“Bad prose writing heralds the [contempt for|disrespect/humiliation of] our culture.”
They both work!
Both “less” and “fewer” calories are wrong, but fewer is more wrong. Saying something has fewer (or less) calories is akin to saying it is fewer (less) degrees outside. The correct phrase would be less energy or less caloric.
Comma, quotation marks. Dammit.
No two ways about it: grammar policing is class policing. I think it’s a bit paranoid the grammatical mistakes by corporations is an attempt to “institionalize” bad grammar. Much more agregious is the content of corporate messages–the corrosive deployment of euphemism to sell an unhealthy product. But please stop equating the correct use of SEV as an arbiter of intelligence. I have no patience for SNOOTS.
I am awesome. I’m like Gary-mother-fuckin’-Oak.
“We are more discreet about our prejudices. In sum: we are different from the British.”
As a british person who gets to observe the US via tv shows, film and reddit, I found that comment so ironic I laughed out loud.
This is a very enjoyable and well-argued piece. There’s just one sentence that I’d really disagree with, and that’s the contention that, “We don’t have a monarchy.”
Ah, but you do. And a bigger monarchy than our own.
American is governed by an ultra-wealthy elite — about one per cent of your population — that considers itself divinely appointed to run the country almost exclusively to its advantage. It doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes, and its wealth and privilege is handed down to its descendants, again without being fairly taxed, thus perpetuating this monstrous tyranny.
The only difference is that the members of the British monarchy are not so hypocritical as to describe themselves as “Libertarians” or better still, “Republicans.”
So yes, language really does influence thought, and corrupted language lends itself to propoganda.
Erik, I must disagree.
In the same way that a yard consists of fewer inches than does a meter, a stalk of celery consists of fewer calories than a hamburger.
No?
As for degrees, well, compare two thermometers which show a discrepancy. Can’t one read 3 degrees fewer than the other?
I was surprised to see a grammar zealot use so many incomplete sentences in one short article!
I was just about to point out the hypocrisy of a professional writer ranting about bad grammar while propagating the use of fragments, and then I came to the end of the comments and saw that Mr. Wood beat me to it.
“Physician, heal thyself?”
This isn’t a very good argument. The “different to” example, for one, is just an arbitrary style choice and its use isn’t a sign of imprecision. Saying ‘different than’ or ‘different from’ instead (besides sounding clunky to my British ears) would clarify nothing. The reluctant non-conformist’s dating profile is a little unclear, but that’s more due to his word choices: is he reluctant about not conforming, or is he a non-conformist who is also reluctant about other things?
Stephen Fry’s contribution to the less vs. fewer debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY
So, as others have, I won’t belabor the fact that all language is mutable and to rail about its mutability is futile, precious, and just a bit silly.
But I think its worth noting that if the point is precision of word choice, the author has made a really horrible choice by conflating “England” and “the British Isles” together. In no sense does the one equate the other.
Here’s more fuel to add to the plea for good grammar.
Language is the very method with which we structure our thinking. Sloppy grammar is indicative of sloppy THINKING.
It’s as simple as that.
There’s a *reason* why grammar was taught so strenuously in school. It was to foster better thinking processes. It’s no wonder so many sound so dumb, good grammar is considered a luxury rather than a necessity.
And we are all the poorer for it.
I try to hold myself to higher standards, but I have worked for supposedly qualified editors who employed “set” instead of “sit” and used “between you and I” rather than “between you and me.” It drove me nuts! I’m sure I’ve made mistakes but would prefer they were brought to my attention, especially in a professional setting. (Or sitting.)
; )
So “media that institutionalizes bad grammar” is right but “30% less calories” is wrong? Let’s call the whole thing off.
Seriously though, the tendency of English to singularise* plurals is of long standing. Queen Victoria wrote “are there any news?” but “news” is now firmly singular. “Media” has become singular except to a few oldies like me. And “calories” is still plural although it is a measure of a continuous quantity, energy, and a clear candidate for becoming singular.
On the other hand, I agree that anything other than “different from” jars horribly because we always says a “differs from” b, not “differs to” or “differs than”.
But a lot of this stuff is a matter of dialect, and we wouldn’t want to suppress anyone’s native dialect, would we?
*Posting from UK and preserving my native dialect.
It’s hard for me to support this argument, especially when it has been taken to such extremes. Proper grammar and usage IS important, it should be taught and it should be stressed but living in a world where many people are still illiterate seems a much more urgent problem for me.
I am just very afraid that if we take up arms for grammar then it will alienate and ostracize people who are not allowed access to resources or don’t have the luxury of good grammar.
I appreciated most of the points the author made in this article. I did not like the statement, “we are, I fear, dumber than the British.” It wasn’t necessary and actually, I think our 200 plus year old country, got its language from the British. We changed our spelling of certain words and “dumbed down” the language. Otherwise, I agree. I think we, in the United States, have lowered the bar considerably overall.
I have trouble understanding some of the reactions here to what is (at least to me) the accurate observation that proofing standards ( word usage, grammar, etc.) have been sliding for quite a while now. I think it’s more of a matter of greedy cost-cutting of editors and proofreaders than anything else.
I think the knee-jerk name calling (snobby, elitist) and the referral to a whole separate problem (high illiteracy rates) are missing the point. One issue does not negate the other.
I also think that the fear that this will “alienate and ostracize” those who “who are not allowed access to resources or don’t have the luxury of good grammar” is misplaced and patronizing. I happened to grow up in a loving working-class home with a strong “Boston” accent that could cut glass, sloppy diction, and a flamboyantly profane and slatternly manner of comporting myself. I made a decision to modulate my own accent and style when I moved to Washington DC (I loved languages and was blessed with a good ear) not because of any shame about my accent or “people”, but out of a decision that some modulation would make my spoken message easier to deliver to a diverse and multi-national audience. Many of these people did not speak English as a first language. I love my English, and love to study and know the correct word to use. Why is this drive “snooty?” I think it is a positive force.
I’m especially irritated by the phrase “the luxury of good grammar.” While I believe the writer means well by this, why the heck is grammar a “luxury?” Is the stolid worker such a mute animal that he has no time for such frippery? Go back again to Orwell’s article! Any tool for effective communication can only help the worker. And remember the quotes of Emma Goldman. Workers need roses, not just bread. I won’t come to your Revolution if you won’t let me dance!
Finally, I remember visiting Astoria in Queens during Christmas Week 2002. The streets were teaming with people come there from all over the world, from Ethiopia, Pakistan, Korea. I looked into the street-level children’s reading room of the public library and found it absolutely packed with people. When I went in, one of the librarians remarked that the children’s books were absolutely read to shreds, their pages thin at the edges from turning. She said these people crowd the reading room because “They want their children to learn.” Rather than dismiss grammar and usage as frippery and any discussion of it as dismissive of “the anonymous poor,” how about push for more library hours? How about volunteering with people “without resources?” Come on, Millions people, get to it!
Moe Murph
(Still Sometimes Slatternly But 59% Less/Fewer Profanities)
How bizarre! Here we have a “grammarian” bemoaning a silly rule for US English and Ms. Maazel doesn’t know that periods go inside the quotation marks in US English even when the period refers to the sentence overall, not the quotation! (Do a search on “prick” and “well educated” to find the problems.)
If she really wants to get after bad writing, she needs to refer back to the ninth century and criticize that schlum of a writer, King Alfred the Great, who broke the fewer vs. less rule, probably because it wasn’t invented for another eight hundred years or so after he died.
Also, why abbreviate “also known as” with small letters. Is it acceptable to not write “AKA” because nobody bothers to do so on Facebook? I don’t have a problem with it either way, but that’s just me….
Finally, who in their right mind thinks that “too little vitamins” means vitamins that are too small? That’s an interpretation even more ungrammatical than King Alfred’s grammatical felony.
Only 1 local supermarket has a lane for “12 items or fewer,” the all designate the lane for “12 items or less.” The worst part is nobody notices.
Compound adjectives are only hyphenated before, not after, the nouns they modify.
“The machine is well oiled.” but
“It is a well-oiled machine.”
“I am well educated.” but
“She is a well-educated person.”
Correction to original essay, first paragraph: the word “media” is plural (singular is “medium”, so it will institutionalize, not institutionalizes.
That aside, poor grammar and punctuation drive me crazy. My pet peeve is poor apostrophe use before an s suffix.
I know a grade school teacher whose spelling and punctuation is poor and pronounces “jaguar” as “jagwire”. How can we expect much of the kids?
Today at work I saw a hand-written sign on the coffee maker that read “I know you here me in your dreams, but make sure to wait until the green light is on”.
Grammar also makes you crazy because it makes you worry that you’re crazy to think about it. However, correct grammar is a happy club: I thought I was the only one who heard “different to teeth” and gritted my teeth every time.
Grammar is community.
Jeanne, I volunteered in a public 8th grade English classroom for a little while, and I was astounded to find that the English teacher spelled grammar “grammer.”
“Big Taste” instead of “Strong Flavor” may not be ungrammatical, but it’s bad English.
Billy Wood, occasional incomplete sentences are perfectly acceptable in well-written prose. What grates is when you can tell the writer doesn’t know any better.
Funny to me because the Ad Men usually have the best grasp of how our language is used in the living day. They don’t always stick to the rules because the language is always changing. Perhaps we should follow them. Ours is a living language. Efficiency over all.
so the final paragraph finally attempts to arrive at what the problem is with bad grammar, and offers ‘little vitamins’ and ‘stronger to the storm’ as perniciously ambiguous phrases that will lead us to a more brain-dead society. so disappointing. nobody is concerned about the size of the vitamins in their dogs’ bowls, and ‘stronger to the storm’ seems to be an irrelevant extrapolation of what might happen, god FORBID, if british usage invades this side of the pond. please don’t use orwell’s work in vain.
It appears the advertising community has released itself from all responsibility to provide properly worded ads to the viewing audience. For the general public to use improper verbiage can be viewed as individuality. For the advertising community it is a crime to lead the public into incorrect usage. Yes, I think the advertisers should be held to a higher standard. Please allow us in the trenches to express ourselves as we may when we communicate with each other, but show us howl it should be done when we watch your ads.