Words on the Page

Another Official Rant Day

Posted on by lwidmer

And this time, it’s aimed at writers. Writers – where’s your pride? I saw some job postings recently for those low-paying articles. This one in particular paid $15 an article. I wanted to see what kind of idiot would think we’d work for that kind of money, so I clicked on the link. The note…

The Royal(ty) Pain

Posted on by lwidmer

I am not really a hard ass. Honest. I was approached recently by a potential client wanting me to write a book manuscript, only with my payout being some sort of royalty arrangement. I had to turn him down. Writing for royalties works in only a few cases – when you’ve hooked up with a…

File This Under Crazy

Posted on by lwidmer

File This Under Crazy Writer chum Kathy Kerhli tells of a client who rejected her after she’d rejected him. You have to read it to believe it. Do you know of any other professional contract position in which the client dictates how the contractor’s billing is going to happen? Anyone? Yep. Just plain nuts.

The Jitters

Posted on by lwidmer

The Jitters Got me a second chance with that there client who didn’t care for my second article. (Before you write, the bad grammar there was intended) My third article will be on a different topic (odd, as I was writing a series of three), and he wants to see bullet points. Funny about that…

Jobs for August 7, 2007

Posted on by lwidmer

Job Listings – August 7, 2007 Bad JuJu Ever wake up after what you think is a great, productive day and find everything falling to bits in front of you? Welcome to my Tuesday. I hit one out of the park last week with a terrific article for a new client. The second article has…

Posted on by lwidmer

Where’s the Rush?A freelancer friend was lamenting this the other day – he’d worked his tail off to get in what was labeled a rush job by the client, and then he waited. And waited. And is still waiting for word on the project status…. I hate this – these pseudo-rush jobs that have to…

Posted on by lwidmer

The Top Ten Amen for memes! Not that I’m a huge meme fan, but it helps when you’re too busy to think hard enough to write something useful. Freelance chum Lillie Ammann asked me to list my ten of my favorite posts. I was going to start surfing, but she said it had to be…

Posted on by lwidmer

Blog R.I.P.I’ve noticed a disturbing (more like frustrating) trend in blogs – you get used to reading one, you look forward to it, and it just fizzles out. What gives? I suspect it’s because we start them with Things to Say!, but we realize too soon we really don’t have all that much to talk…

Posted on by lwidmer

What a Way to Be PissedClient: By the way, I’m really pissed at you.Me: Yea? Why?Client: I couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with that article you sent. I had nothing to edit!Me: I hope I piss you off more often. It feels good when you finally synch with someone. That’s all it is. I…

Posted on by lwidmer

Supposably Better Then Them GuysOne of my biggest peeves is the misuse of commonly used words. What irks me is the recent upward trend of the abuse. I’ve heard seemingly intelligent people spewing out (or writing out) misspellings left and right. Here’s my list, with the correct terms in parentheses. Feel free to add your…

Leigh

Haha, prostrate vs. prostate reminds me of some of the funny lines on The Sopranos. “I’m prostate with grief here!” and “Ever since I stopped drinking, I’ve been ostrafied” (instead of ostracized).

My recent pet peeves are people who use picture in place of pitcher; the express line sign that says, “ten items or less” since it should be “ten items or fewer”; and plane used instead of plain.

I edited a doc the other day and the author must have been in the bathroom when his English teacher was working on subject-verb agreement and dangling modifiers. At the end of every other sentence, I found myself wondering, “WHO/WHAT is he talking about?!”

Lori

Ostrafied? That sounds like something an Australian bird might suffer from… 😉

Leigh

That show has a lot of good purposely-written errors in grammar/word choice, but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.

Lillie Ammann

You’ve listed many of my own pet peeves. Unfortunately, they are all too common.

alicia

In addition to every single one you listed, haha, my skin crawls when –

– I hear “We was…” or “They was…”
– I run into “2” for to, two, or too, “u” for you, etc.
– I see sentences ended with prepositions (unless it’s completely informal).

Lori

The sentence ending in a preposition doesn’t get to me all that much, Alicia. I agree it’s wrong, but sometimes it sounds much better. I use my own judgment for those. Isn’t poetic license what writing is all about? (preposition intended) 🙂

Messenger

You’ve named a lot of my favorite mistakes to hate. Without putting a lot of thought into it, I’ll name a couple of my biggest pet peeves.

My #1 pet peeve managed to miss your list but when you see it, I bet you’ll say it was just an oversight: It’s “irregardless”! This is an especially heinous misuse since “ir” is a prefix meant to reverse the meaning of a word and yet those who use this word, use it as if it means the same thing as regardless! Of course, that would mean that ir-regardless would actually mean with regard!

I suppose they they think that if irregular is a word, then irregardless must be, too! What amazes me is how often I hear this used by educated and intelligent people and how often I hear it on the news! That is probably why it has also come into such regular use because people hear it on the news and assume it is a new word or maybe that they have been saying it wrong.

My other pet peeve is how often people use the wrong word tense such as “seen” in the following sentences: “I seen that before!” “I seen him at the store.” If people would stop to think, they might remember that there are three forms of that word, “see”, “saw” and “seen” and that the last one (in this sort of irregular verbs list) is only to be used with a helper such as have, has or had.

I’m sure I could come up with more if I took time to think about it but these will have to suffice. I feel better, now! Thanks! 😉