I agree Avant but magazines and papers don't employ sub editors for nothing. Mistakes are corrected and articles are trimmed down if too verbose. I certainly agree with you about Autocar, the Telegraph and the chap in the top lefthand corner though!
I think education has slipped in general though and I'd be the first to admit that I am a casualty of "modern" teaching methods even though on paper I am well qualified (degrees in History and Law). I have recently taken a qualification to teach English as as a foreign language and was astounded at how little I actually knew about grammar. I was not taught it at school and I had to teach myself from scratch for the course. It seemed to me that everyone under 30 (my generation) had no idea. The older folk on the course conversely (I won't give ages) seemed to know it inside out. If I was my father I'd sue for past school fees! Many universities are having to teach spelling/grammar to their undergrads and despite my previous levity I find that shocking.
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I've worked in education for many years and hear this argument all of the time. Education is responsive to need, perceived need and zeitgeist. Consequently the education that we received will not be the same education being received by the 'yoof of today'. Pupils are being equipped for a more dynamic future and there is, necessarily, a greater emphasis on teamworking and problem solving. It's delivered very differently too as we now know so much more about the physical processes of learning.
If it's any comfort, education is cyclical and the teaching of formal skills is once more high on the agenda. Consequently, I'm pleased to report that none of my pupils (at an average age of ten) would ever consider using a possessive apostrophe in a pronoun whereas twenty years ago my boss would have been appalled had I 'stifled' pupils' creativity in such a manner (sorry Matt that would have included your generation!). Conversely I also see the other end of the spectrum with undergraduates who carnt spel unles thay've got a spellcheker in frunt of them. Whether this is a result of the educational approach they received or whether as a consequence of a government target for 50% of the population to pursue an academic qualification is difficult to determine.
Am I wittering?
Hmm, thought so. Shutting up now.
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Interesting and dare I venture, mildly encouraging KE.
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Good for you this apostrophe business is driving me bonkers, I've stopped correcting them in here since I had a "telling off".
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Keep correcting them, I say. Mind you, I'm a grumpy old Hector with a natural tendency towards pedantry.
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Absolutely, PU - keep it up, and a taxidermist's curse on whoever told you not to.
My English O-level examiner in the 1960s had a vestige of a semse of humour and asked for the following to be punctuated:
"Our Christmas turkey had not arrived, so we ate one of our friends."
So it does matter!
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I've come across that one as well Avant! By the way the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss is brilliant on punctuation and is required reading in my opinion. If you are grammar illiterate ( as I was) I would also recommend Practical English Usage by Michael Swan(OUP). We all make mistakes and both books are very useful.
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I was given a sound talking to by a BR member by e-mail. A person I hold in great esteem (checks nose for growth). He'll know who it is.
Edited by Pugugly on 08/11/2008 at 23:28
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Trouble with your post PU is that no one will dare follow it for fear of being branded.
And no the rest of you, it wasn't me, even though I know more about apostrophes than many on here.
Back to standards, we've had teenagers on work experience who are barely literate and certainly not numerate.
Makes the job hard, being able to write English with reasonable clarity is as important as being able to speak it.
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i'm still waiting for the red top headline to read "Solictor socks client for calling him 'dude' and saying 'innit' too many times"
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Try the papers on May 13 2009. The day I retire.
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I think you will discover, Mattbod, that magazines and newspapers these days only employ sub-editors to pour largely unchecked copy into pre-designed Quark page templates.
You will also discover that if you are prepared to stick your head above the parapet you will most certainly be shot at - fairly or otherwise.
Good luck is all I can say - someone with your evident standards is coming along too late, I fear. You have chosen to enter a devalued trade.
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This is the story of my life Mike. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with my grandparents whose values could be said to be Edwardian in a good way. They taught me to maintain decency, principles and high standards in all areas of my life. I am well aware of diminishing standards, I saw it in my brief foray in the legal profession. I was lucky enough to be articled to a solicitor of "the old school" and had an excellent training but when he retired everything went downhill. I became disillusioned and depressed and got out.Been doing numerous things since, trying to find my niche but nothing permanent. I write as a sideline/hobby but I am aware of what you say. However I still believe there are some good journalists left. I also believe that one should still maintain standards today. Most of the time you will be left despondent and frustrated but occasionally your efforts are recognised and that makes all the grief worthwhile. It's also the only way things will change for the better.
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I know I'm resurrecting an old thread but what the hell is happening at AE?
Reading their piece on the Mercedes Fascination is an eye opener, misspellings and lack of spaces between words must surely point to a lack of proof reading and editorship. Can it sink any lower?
Steve.
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I can't believe their star letter last week was from someone claiming that misfuelling diesels was a massively over-hyped problem because he'd once put a few litres of petrol in an 11 year old VW Sharan and got away with it by simply topping off with diesel.
No acknowledgment of the gulf in technology between an 11 yr old VW (or anything else) and a modern common rail unit. No words of caution from the editor. Just published in all its glory. Irresponsible as well as incorrect.
Cheers
DP
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I know I'm resurrecting an old thread but what the hell is happening at AE?
Can't speak for AE (presume the OP means Auto Express), but journalists are being laid off elsewhere as advertising revenues continue to decline.
Fewer journalists mean cost savings for employers, but also fewer stories and lower standards.
Ideally, an article is written by an experienced journalist who routinely produces clean copy.
The odd typo or literal which slips through is then spotted by an equally experienced sub-editor.
These days, resources are so thin, editors are sometimes forced to take copy from anyone with a computer.
Often it's dross, but is allowed to go virtually straight to print because subbing costs money, doesn't it?
The result of this bare bones approach is the type of scruffy article to which the OP refers.
Edited by ifithelps on 09/12/2008 at 11:29
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Few journalists have standards worth having.. so this subject is an oxymoron.
:-)
Edited by madf on 09/12/2008 at 11:31
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:-)
A smiley madf?
Didn't think you did those.
Now if I could just mention the economy to get you back on track... :)
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"A smiley madf?
Didn't think you did those."
I break into laughter every time that nice Mr Darling makes a forecast ...:-)
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In a popular "Quality Sunday" they review 2nd hand cars - 1 per week - a month ago or so they reviewed a Pug 607 - fair enough the words were probably OK but their pricing was miles out.
"HJ Price offers" were the same for Pre reg as he was quoting for 1yr / 10K mls.
Wrote in and they published a cut down version of my letter.
Since then they have run quite big articles 1 or 2 pages on getting a good price / driving a hard bargain - not under the name of the original "2nd hand man" but other journalist (or maybe the same staff member under a pseudonym!!!)
Pretty poor journalism for a quality Sunday not to be aware of the downturn in new and 2nd hand prices especially in the last 6 months!
(Not The Telegraph or sister publication!)
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>The odd typo or literal which slips through is then spotted by an equally experienced sub-editor.<
And when was the last time you saw one of those? (Don't ask ME that question - I look at one every morning over the breakfast table...).
She tells me that even the Times Literary Supplement is now full of typos and factual errors, let alone poor writing and research. She's just cancelled her long-running subscription in despair.
See further up the thread: all so-called sub-editors are required to do now is pour raw copy into Quark Express page templates - grammar correction and fact-checking are both history.
As for >Ideally, an article is written by an experienced journalist who routinely produces clean copy.< - well, don't get me started...
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Falkirk Bairn, if you are talking about Jason Dawe's used car column, he seems to come up with his fair share of howlers. One that springs to mind was stating that the Citroen C4 was the first car ever to use different rear end styling on the 3 door and 5 door versions.
This is something that has been around since the early eighties at least, used on the Vauxhall Nova, Toyota Corolla and Nissan Sunny to but three.
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Its worth you reading the Streets of Shame in Private Eye. Very telling of the industry in general.
There are plenty of journalists who have standards by the way, you're obviously reading the wrong publications. Its an honourable profession which has, like many others, its
failings but a sweeping generalisation isn't fair or just.
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Why, in football reports, does the scorer always ' put the ball in the back of the net' ?
I always thought the idea was to put it in the front !
Ted
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Whenever there is a big story somewhere, or people think there may be one, lots of hacks turn up like starlings on the telegraph wires. When they have finished competing for hotel rooms and finding the back door to the post office for all-night telex access (I am talking 20 or 30 years ago you understand) they are thrown much on each other's company, the locals being even more limited (if that doesn't sound impossible). Chinese whispers sort of covers it.
I have actually seen a joke made over the dinner table on the wires as agency news 24 hours later. Believe me, don't believe much, knowImean?
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See further up the thread: all so-called sub-editors are required to do now is pour raw copy into Quark Express page templates - grammar correction and fact-checking are both history.
Time is money, as they say.
Squeeze as much work out of subs in as short a period as you can, and grammatical and fact checking suffers.
Many media organisations worldwide are chopping back - and it makes bean-counter sense to axe long-service guys, because their salaries are inevitably higher.
So you end up with a bunch of spotty erks with the grammatical (and general) knowledge of a chimp, smashing copy into a given space.
Motoring wise, I've seen some very knowledgable types producing great copy, only to have the most poignant bits chopped by some subbie who wants to lose 35 lines of copy... and whose knowledge of motoring terms and names is non existent.
So you read about Sterling Moss, Giles Villaneuve, Nicky Lauder and Damien Hill.
And Maclaren, Brabam and Ferarri.
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In a similar vein.
Is it just me that thinks that the current fashion for 'my life story' written by some wannabe that's only in their twenties is cobblers? I thought you had to wait until you had retired (properly retired not just out of work/fashion or unemployable) then write your memoirs.
OK so I'm a bit old fashioned but it wouldn't half cut down on waste paper....
Steve.
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Is it just me that thinks that the current fashion for 'my life story' written by some wannabe that's only in their twenties is cobblers? I thought you had to wait until you had retired (properly retired not just out of work/fashion or unemployable) then write your memoirs.
some snipquoting
Jackie Stewart and Lewis Hamilton publishing their autobiographies in the same year!
alfalfa
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 12/12/2008 at 19:02
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*KerChing!*
Any ghost-written Biog which comes out just before Xmas/just after some momentous occasion will no doubt be in ther bargain bins at some stage soon.
My favourite - some twaddle rushed out by some journo after James Herriot died.
If you didn't know that he was offered a directorhip at a certain footbnall club... you'd know it after reading the book, which mentioned the fact at least 5 times!
Back - kicking and screaming - to motoring...
Eddie Irvine's autobiog was great - as was Murray Walker's.
Important to note that BOTH went to an updated reprint a year later... Shows that they were good, and were sold in high numbers.
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so sad to see way local/regional papers have gone and are going. As with Mercedes a few years back, the accountants began determining staff levels, resulting in declining standards and almost skeleton staffs. Local offices in town were shut, losing journos vital contact with public while they were crammed into industrial estate head offices doing more work for poor money. I had over 30 years in a "local" office (now long gone, like the paper - a broadsheet now replaced by a pathetic freebie) and they were good times. Now they are under so much time pressure they can't do the job properly - hence typos, poor punctuation, lines and pic captns missing etc. Unless you have journos who can spell and edit as well as write, you need good subs! Feel better now ...
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PS ooh, 'eck - late news from UK Press Gazette website:
>>"A third of the UK's regional newspapers, two national newspapers and half of the jobs in the regional media will disappear in the next five years, a leading media analyst has predicted.
Claire Enders, the founder and chief executive of media research firm Enders Analysis, has called on the Government to urgently relax the competition rules governing cross-media ownership to allow newspaper groups to buy each other and enable print, TV and radio companies to diversify further.
"Local newspapers in particular are carrying the full pain of the terrible decline of the local communities in this country which is happening and will accelerate as the retailers die on the High Street," Enders told a Westminster Media Forum conference in London this morning.
"The effect of this in terms of jobs is going to be pretty catastrophic. We're expecting half of those jobs to go within the next five years."
She added: "By 2013 we are expecting the local press in particular to have declined very very substantially indeed.">>>
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 12/12/2008 at 19:02
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Pal told me this week that the group I most recently worked for is cutting jobs in main and branch offices, voluntary or compulsory, with the jobs to go by Christmas eve. I, too, don't see how any sort of standards will be maintained.
I guess this is a result of the sudden catastrophic drop in advertising revenue and the fact that even local titles now have to have websites with moving pictures that simply cannot pay.
Maybe the wheel is turning full circle and local papers will fall back into the hands of local individuals or small groups? Not a bad thing, maybe.
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The Framley Examiner, mike?
:)
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No - it's in the westcountry. Used to be Southern Newspapers, then Newsquest, now - I think - Gannet something or other. Might be the same group owner, of course.
If I ever see my company pension it'll be a miracle.
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Don't even mention ther 'P' word...
Friday evening, 19h10 here, and I've been down at the company Xmas bash... you wanna see the guys slamming down the booze at co expense - the attitude is "We may be retrenched next week... screw the company!"
Back to motoring - fortunately they are operating a take-you-home service for the miscreants, to prevent them driving home.
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telegraph strikes with the wrong photo in HJ's section.
HJ recommended a Mitsubishi Shogun SW and the picture is a Shogun!
Not HJ's fault but somebody @ the editorial staff needs to do their homework.
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Hahahahahaha!
What did I tell you?
In today's local motoring supplement - IN THE SUB HEADING - they refer to the new Merc as the Sterling Moss edition - even though they use about 15 'Stirlings' in the copy, and the picture caption!
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