Use it right!

I was facebook creeping as usual (don't judge, you all do it) and I saw a high school friend's page and decided to open it. On it, she posted pictures of her fiance proposing to her. He bought her a house and spelled out his proposal in tea light candles. But he spelled "marry" as "merry". I don't want to sound stuck up, but I'd be soooo mad if that's how I was proposed to. How could he not have taken the time to figure out which "marry/merry" to use? It's just lazy.

Second of all, another person's status said he "was board". Again, it's b-o-r-e-d. Little things like this really take away a person's credibility and it annoys the heck out of me.

I also got a text today from someone that said "are" when they meant to say "our". OK, these are two completely different words with very different meanings.

Why can't people figure this out and take the time to get it right?

Some Professors Need to Learn the Language

I'd like to think that we attend a pretty highly credited University. But every now and again I wonder about that--when I have to correct the grammar and spelling of my own professors.

I was sitting in my Psychology 250 lecture (Personality Psychology) learning about how you can learn a lot about a person from the way his or her office or bedroom looks. My professor then began to talk to us about how social networking Web sites offer the same information. He was using power point slides during his lecture and as he made each of his points, he moved from slide to slide. The title of each slide in this section read: "websites." First of all, you at least know it's in the form of a title, so capitalize it already. Secondly, look it up. It's two words. If I have to be tested on this over and over again, should those people providing me with an education know this stuff too?

Secondly, I was working on a study guide for my Latin American history exam that I took this morning and my professor used the words "examplify" and "towards" in the same sentence. There is no "a" in exemplify and it's toward. No "s". And yet this guy is grading my exam?

Granted, both the professors I have mentioned don't have a strong emphasis of language in their background. But all of the above examples that I gave are quite common words and would give professors a lot more credibility (at least with me) if they took the time to look up the proper usage and spelling before attempting to use them in a sentence or in a lecture.

The DI, but of course...

Something bothers me about the DI and I see it almost every time. It's more of a stylistic issue and it's so easy to fix. Titles of Jumps.

Sometimes they go by last name of the author. Sometimes they go by a key word in the headline. Sometimes they go by the main subject of the story.

Just pick one and stick with it.

For example, the March 3 edition of the DI has jumps titled by subject of story or key word in headline: Burnham, Text, Elections, MTD, and Archaeologists. Usually when you go to find the jump of a story, you look for the subject your reading about.

However, one stands out: Loggins. This is the last name of a diversions columnist who not only got her name in the byline but also the jump. How many people know who Colleen Loggins is off the top of her head? I bet it's limited to co-workers, family and friends. It just makes things difficult for readers to find and is a complete lack of consistency. It's not hard to change the name of the jump to something relevant.

Also, I'd like to point out that her story starts on 6A and jumps to 5A. Smooth move, DI. Real smooth. The readers can now read the end of the story before the beginning. Not that they will have a clue what they are reading because the jump title makes it sounds like we're reading about computer log-ins.

I do get tired about hearing crap about the DI. However, I can't help but join in when there are so many minor mistakes made daily that can easily be fixed. It's hard not point that out sometimes.