Are ZDnet authors edited at all?

I mean seriously, when someone gets up on a soapbox about quality of language, shouldn’t they, y’know, get their language up to par?

So, some responses, because of course ZDnet removes all critical commentary:

• Flagrant means “intentionally flamboyant.”  Errors are rarely flagrant.  Flagrancy is not about how wrong someone is; an error is only flagrant when someone makes it knowing full well that it is an error, and even then only when they are making the error solely for the purpose of angering someone.  (Like, y’know, a bad writer with delusions of language quality.)
• None of these are grammar errors.
  • All but #4 are lexical errors.
  • #4 is simply incorrect.  Both i.e. (id est) and i.e. (exempla gratia) precede examples; you use IE when your list is complete and exhaustive (ie when every possible correct outcome is investigated), but e.g. when the list is incomplete (e.g. when putting out a sanctimonious author’s low quality of english to be seen by all.)
  • Grammar errors put are things place wrong like when you in the.
• #2 is particularly galling: you cannot download something along with the things inside it; whereas the sentiment the author is fumbling towards is apparent, the other mistakes they make set the well educated reader’s teeth on edge.
  • “Along with” is never correct.  It’s “alongside”.
  • The second half of #2 is even worse, as the “its” there is extraneous and incorrect.
    • A conjunction is sufficient to conjoin; one need not, and indeed must not, put in an ancillary pronoun.
• #5: Impact certainly is a verb, you giant lummox.
  • Granted the thing you’re trying to admonish against is wrong – impact does not denote effect – but yes, an asteroid can impact the moon.  Don’t be a dunce.
• #6: “on a regular basis” is a horrific britishism.
  • The word is “regularly”.  You would do well to read on language usage regularly.
  • For someone who wants to lessen the effect of the misuse of impact to turn around and be confused about the much simpler word “basis” is frankly hilarious.
• #7: No, you tremendous gonce.  “Differs from”.  Not different from.  Have you any concept of conjugation?
• #9:  When a sentence begins with if, you’re doing a bad job at writing, and should start the sentence again.
  • It doesn’t matter what’s required at that point, as you’ve begun writing crap.
  • Then is not implicit; it’s extraneous.
    • I have no doubt you’ll insist there’s no practical difference on the heels of an article about getting details correct.
  • There is no such thing as a sub-peeve.  Peeves are not scaled by size.
• #10: No, you might have, not could have.  Could have refers to possibility, not happenstance; it applies only in the abstract.
  • A ZDnet author could have failed grammar school; you might have.
  • And by might have, I actually mean should have.

Please don’t labor the internet with your savant elocutions anymore, good sir or madam.   And ask your editor why they aren’t saving you this embarrassment.  It’s their job, don’cha know.

It’s things like this which make me wish ZDnet editors were publically visible.  This kind of piss poor sanctimony is becoming increasingly common at a site which pretends to be about technology and business, and if the editors were made aware how thoroughly disgusted their readers were with the bathwater quality of writing they pass, they might get back to editing.

Congratulations, Jody: you’ve hit a new low for ZDnet writing.

The kind of bilious, hate-driven homophobic nonsense spewing out of the mouth of Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, R-NC, makes me ill.  I know a lot of smart people in North Carolina.  It remains unclear to me how they could allow a monster like this to govern them.

Unsurprisingly, at this time, the good Congresswoman is unavailable for comment by any phone number I can find (I’ve tried eight so far; they all just ring, or go to voicemail.)

http://www.americablog.com/2009/04/republican-congresswoman-says-matthew.html

If you are a republican, it is people like this which are why your political support has dropped to a historic low of 16%.  For reference, 14% of americans support the legalization of Heroin; you’re near absolute clue zero.  If you’re from North Carolina, I sure hope you’re a Democrat.  If you aren’t, and you know what happened here …

I cannot imagine how Virginia Foxx came to the notion that the Matthew Shephard tragedy was “a hoax.”  This woman should be ashamed of herself for making such a claim.

Please let the congresswoman know what you think.

Phone: (202) 225-2071
Phone: (336) 778-0211
Phone: (828) 265-0240

If this woman retains her seat past the next election, North Carolina will join Texas and Alaska as states full of people with absolutely unfathomable priorities.  Just unbelievable that this woman is willing to show her face in public after perpetrating such obvious hate driven fiction.

I would consider this a new low for a place like Westboro Baptist, the people who stalk funerals.  For this to come out of a seated congressperson’s mouth after 1850 is just stunning.

And here I thought Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill were representative of the state.  Makes you wonder what Rep. Brad Miller thinks; he’s forward enough to understand why Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is destructive.

Apparently John McCain thinks it’s pork to control Mormon Crickets in Utah.  So much so, it seems, that he’s marked it the #6 piece of pork in a trillion dollar spending bill, despite that it’s less than one one thousandth of one percent of the cost.  Given that he’s biblically old, I would have thought he’d understand how important it is to stop SWARMING LOCUSTS.  I shit you not, the quote:

$1 million for mormon cricket control in Utah – is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits?

I mean seriously, that’s so fundamentally uninformed that I can’t even mock it.  A million dollars is a bargain for statewide pest control that costs hundreds of millions of dollars in structural and crop damage annually.  He’s old enough that, statistically speaking, he should have seen every living thing at least twice by now (including brontosaurus); one is tempted to remind him of that crawly sandwich he had with Joseph Smith.

“I have no idea what they’re even talking about, so surely I’m qualified to think it’s pork!  Who needs locust control anyway?”

Asshat.

I am setting my prediction in stone.  I predict a 57% electoral college win for Obama, and 43% to McCain.  At the time of this writing, no results are in for any state.