Now that I’ve come to the end of my documentary film class (more about that later), it’s time to play catch-up here at the ol’ blog. Let’s start with a new addition to the Dateline>City of Angels blogroll: Prose Parade.
Launched a few weeks ago by my friend Linnea Hunt-Stewart, Prose Parade’s focus is grammar and writing basics, but I especially enjoy Linnea’s ongoing rants against abuses of the English language.
Take for example her recent post “Where have all the copyeditors gone?” in which she takes the New York Daily News to task for badly mangling a caption about Natasha Richardson’s hearse.
A Pasadena resident (hence the name Prose Parade), Linnea admits some astonishment at the number of visitors who’ve already latched onto her site — but I’m not surprised.
Linnea was my managing editor when I first began my career at Petersen Publishing and has remained a good friend ever since. With a keen eye for grammar and a sharp sense of humor, she taught me everything I know about copyediting and, by extension, writing. Now a broader audience is also discovering her wit, wisdom and love of language.
If she can get at least some of them to stop using increasingly common but grammatically abhorrent formations like “I seen,” the English-speaking world will be a much better place.
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Thank you for the kind words about my first foray into creating my own site. Take a look at today’s entry. This one can set my teeth on edge. I know I’m judgmental about these things, but you know what it’s like to have a ear trained for how words should go. I hear an owie, and I shudder. It may be my curse, but it put food on the table and, actually, still does.