I'm sorry, I can't help it
I've said this before: I am a grammar nazi. I can't help it. It's my mom's fault. She was a superb speller, and even more of a grammar nazi than I am. That last part isn't true. I think I'm much worse than she was, but you get the picture. I inherited the gene. She reinforced it through example and training. If I'm reading an article, and run across a spelling error, I fixate on it. A typo I can handle, but an honest-to-goodness spelling error stops me in my tracks. Grammatical errors do likewise. Given that I am burdened by this character flaw, I avoid reading our local newspaper. It is rife with spelling and grammar errors, let alone an unbelievable number of typos, and to my chagrin, it gets worse all the time. Fortunately, it's a very small paper; about 6 to 8 pages most days, not including the classifieds. Laughingly, they want just a couple dollars a month less for a subscription to it than it costs to subscribe to the much more substantial real newspaper (as opposed to this pretend newspaper) out of Spokane, to which we do subscribe. I do see the local paper on a regular basis, since we get it at work. I will often take 3 or 4 minutes and skim through it. Everyone in town jokes that they only read it for the obits and the police blotter. I logged on to their site this morning to check on the weather, and saw an article on the power outages we had Tuesday night. I shouldn't have. It got my grammar nazi hackles up. How many errors can you spot in the following story? I'll make it easy for you. I'll highlight them in red.
About 1,000 Northern Lights customers living south of Sandpoint were without power for several hours when BPA lost power to its substation, according to a NLI press release. Power went out about 7:30 p.m. and was back on by 9:50 p.m., said Elissa Glassman, NLI communications director. The "extremely high gusty winds Tuesday evening" Northern Lights experienced scattered outages throughout its service area. (Does this sentence even make sense? We're missing a comma, not to mention a verb or two.)
About 300 Northern Lights customers also lost power north of Sandpoint because of the storm.
As of 9 a.m. Wednesday, less (should be FEWER) than 100 customers were without power, Glassman said. (Um, was this a quote? Then where are the quotation marks?)
About 1,000 customers in the Hope area lost power after a tree fell across two lines, said Debbie Simock of Avista Utilities. (another quote sans quotation marks)
"We had to have a tree removed before we could make repairs," she said.
Power was restored in the area about 1 p.m. Wednesday.
About 14 Clark Fork area customers were still without power as of mid-afternoon because a downed-pole (this is hyphenated why?) had to be replaced. That outage effected (affected, not effected) people along Cascade Creek and NFD 419.
The storm also uprooted some trees in south Sandpoint, including a couple at Lakeview Park near Memorial Field.
If you are experiencing a power outage, Northern Lights ask that people be patient while calling its office.
The lines may be busy due to the high volume, so keep trying. To report outages, call 263-5141 or 1-800-326-9594.
If you see downed power lines or a tree, do not go near it. (Wow, we can't go near trees now.) Call the sheriff's department or Northern Lights immediately.
Keep in mind, that's just one article. Oh, and it was the lead story on the front page. The article never did explain why our power was out from 12:15 AM until 1:45 AM. That's The Daily Bee for you. Now you understand why I can't read it without cringing.
Oh, and I just remembered. I am so excited! We are getting the entire 26-volume Oxford English Dictionary at work! It's usually ridiculously expensive, but apparently they have offered it to us at an insanely low price, so we're getting it! I really can't wait. It's the dictionary lovers dictionary. As much as I love words, and grammar, and etymology, and, and, and... well, it will be amazing. Expect "word of the day" posts once it arrives. I know you all just can't wait.
