Sorry about the mistake on the last post's headline. (Vengeans? Sort of like vengeful vegans?) Spell-checkers have turned my brain to mush.
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I've been subcloning today and my brain feels like mush. (All you non-biologists have no fear, subcloning = cutting and pasting DNA). Then I get an email from an old friend ... "look at this natural hallucinogen video" ... yeah whatever, you stare at the moving pattern and then turn away and ...…
"Drinking green tea may fight prostate cancer"
To: MSNBC Chief Editor
Re: Headline writers
Dear Sir:
It has come to our attention that many of your readers are misinterpreting the headlines of news stories you post on MSNBC. We bring this to your attention in order to forestall any unfortunate…
Bush's head may be hard, but his brains are complete mush.
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tags: Bush, politics, humor
One of my favourite journal-club comments, from back in the days when I did science, about a previous Hansen paper that failed to find favour. I'm hoping to actually read the Hansen Noveau, and hopeful that it isn't just old wine in new bottles, but first a brief comment about comment policy. Blogs…
Oh, sure, blame it on spellcheckers!
Not often I have the opportunity to make the same comment to two brothers, each of whom has an admirable blog. To quote myself from OUPblog ...
Yes, yes - I know you weren't whining. That part was really directed at a piece of the article on which I was commenting at OUPblog.
Spell checkers saved my spelling ability. Really. But for it to work, you have to actually look to see what got corrected, and imagine how the error crept in. Do you really not know how to spell it? Do your fingers automatically add an extra letter?
But only careful proofreading will save you form all mistakes.
Well put ...
Over on Language Log, my other blogging home, we'd call that an example of the Bierce/Hartman/McKean/Skitt Law of Prescriptive Retaliation: "any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror."
Prescriptivist Retaliation!
Carl, Ben, David:
Take it easy.
One of the forensic tools to detect plagiarism is to look for the repetition of an odd error. Somebody will be looking for "prescriptive retaliation" and "vengeans" in future masters and doctorate theses.
I have a friend who works for a public policy non-profit, and whenever she gets a new computer (or a new version of MS Office) she immediately goes into the dictionary and deletes the word "pubic"...
Everybody knows that Vengeans come from Vengea. Didn't you study world geography?
:-)