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The sticklers of the past have been subbed out of the game

Chris Paine

by Chris Paine

12 Jul 03:40pm

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Filed under: Education, Grammar, Journalism, Media, Spelling, Sub Editing

92 comments

This morning I read this interesting piece from the SMH Readers’ Editor about spelling and grammatical errors in copy.

We've used this before but it never gets old…

I read it on an iPad on my way to work at news.com.au. These two facts are worth mentioning because they both reveal an important truth: I’m a product of the digital age. In six-and-a-half years as a journalist I’ve never worked at a newspaper. Nor a magazine. I’m a digital journalist and I’ve only ever written for online outlets.

The point is this: we don’t have the backbenches and traditional subs’ desks of old, which did a great job of picking up on mistakes. In the online game being first is everything. We’re all sticklers for clean copy and publishing stories free of errors and typos is paramount. But being first with a yarn is usually paramounter. I know that’s not a word. Just go with it.

We work hard and we work fast. We hold ourselves to extremely high standards. And without being flippant and without making excuses, guess what? We’re going to mistakes. Every single one of us. And I’ve had some howlers.

I once led a national sports site with a cricket story. Except instead of a photo of the Sri Lankan batsman who’d pasted the Aussies, I published a shot of a golfer in spectacularly loud pants. The server went down. It was up for an hour.

This next example’s a doozy: Last year I applied for a sub-editor job, boasting that I have a sharp eye for copy and “loathe slopping errors”. Slopping? New word I guess.

I could have punched a wall when I realised I’d submitted that. I’m so fastidiously anal about making mistakes, yet I let these clangers through like a goalkeeper with oil on his gloves.

The SMH piece was right: we must hold ourselves to higher standards. We work on it every day. Though I doubt anyone could ever mistake the word “birth” for “berth”. Here are four other mistakes you should never, ever make.

Affect/Effect: Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun. This rule comes with one caveat: commentators who love the rarely-used verb form of effect. Yes, Ray Warren, you can “effect a tackle on the halfway line”. Or you could just tackle.

There/Their/They’re: It’s really simple. There = a place that’s not here. Their = it’s not yours. They’re = short for “they are”. Next.

Weather/Whether: One concerns rail, hail and shine. One does not. Sort it out.

Apostrophes: Apostro-fails make me cringe with giddy smugness. There are only three important rules: 1) If no plural word exists, the apostrophe goes on the inside; 2) If it’s a collective word ending in the letter ‘s’, it goes on the outside; 3) Stop putting an apostrophe in the word bananas. Just, stop.

Chris Paine has never, ever made a typo on his Twitter account, @christoforpaine.

Most commented

92 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • pa_kelvin says:

      03:54pm | 12/07/12

      Should it read….’.I’m so fastidiously anal about NOT making mistakes’....or was that a mistake.? smile

      Reply

    • Jason Todd says:

      03:55pm | 12/07/12

      I’m really hoping that the typos in there were made on purpose.

      Reply

    • Alph says:

      03:55pm | 12/07/12

      To comfort a grammar fascist, give ‘em a big hug and say “There, they’re, their.”

      Reply

    • Babylon in Canberra says:

      04:24pm | 12/07/12

      Winner!  wink

    • Inky says:

      06:31pm | 15/07/12

      I both laugh and wince.

      Also, we used to call them Grammaryans

    • seniorcynic says:

      03:59pm | 12/07/12

      From memory 3 of those “Barrack Obama” mugs were sold by the parliament house gift shop before the spelling mistake was discovered. I wonder what they are worth now - much like a stamp with a printing error.

      Reply

    • Interested observer says:

      04:03pm | 12/07/12

      My pet hate - bloggers who refer to somebody being “reigned in” rather than reined in.  I know the horse and buggy days are far behind us but there is a difference between being ruled over and being pulled up short.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      04:21pm | 12/07/12

      I was irritated by a comment the other day that kept using the word “taught” when the writer meant “taut.”  “Moot” and “mute” is another pet peeve.

    • Alfie says:

      04:22pm | 12/07/12

      So what about Krudd? Is Reined in, or maybe rained-on?

    • John L says:

      04:32pm | 12/07/12

      @marley: at least the writer didn’t mean “torte” or “tort”.

    • Coop says:

      06:45pm | 12/07/12

      also FFS you toe the line not tow it!

    • Chris L says:

      02:09pm | 13/07/12

      Still trying to work out how one can “loose” an election.

    • miloinacup says:

      04:05pm | 12/07/12

      Okay, so my eyesight is pretty rank and as such I can’t make out the words on that mug. What does it say and what is wrong with it?

      Reply

    • marley says:

      04:19pm | 12/07/12

      It’s Barack, not Barrack.  Unless of course it’s an invitation to jeer at Mr. Obama.

    • Rick with a silent P says:

      04:28pm | 12/07/12

      I think it says The Unaltered States of America, don’t worry my eyes are f@rked as well but I’m sure there is no L in united.

    • hot tub politcal machine says:

      04:59pm | 12/07/12

      When scanning it I was dissapointed to see it didn’t say he was the president of Australia. It would have been a grammer error and a freudian slip.

    • Brad says:

      06:32pm | 12/07/12

      I thought the mistake was Mr Obama is blacker in real life. Also the handle is way to big for the mug. Way to big.

    • Matt says:

      07:02pm | 12/07/12

      *disappointed
      *President (capital)
      *grammar
      *Freudian (capital)

      You can thank me later, hot tub *political machine wink

      Thank goodness we sticklers still exist on comment threads. Otherwise you’d have been a bit of a laughing stock with that epic fail.

    • LJ Dots says:

      09:31pm | 12/07/12

      Now that gave me a laugh. Remember to breath HTPM

    • wearestardust says:

      04:15pm | 12/07/12

      There is also psychological affect, which is a noun.  As anyone who watches Law and Order SVU knows, the person without the affect diddit.

      Apostrophes.  The odd thing is that abusers seem to use them exactly wrongly; always but only deploying them when not appropriate, and vice-versa.

      Why do so many people think “lose” is spelled “loose”?

      I will preemptively call on Skitt’s Law in relation to the inevitable mistake(s) in this post.

      Reply

    • Lord Bottomley says:

      05:10pm | 12/07/12

      I am also baffled by the number of people on sites such as this one who incorrectly spell “lose” as “loose”. 

      In a strange paradox, many of them seem quite capable of spelling out “loser” when they feel aggrieved by anothers opposing opinion.

    • stephen says:

      05:10pm | 12/07/12

      It is ‘effect’.
      Must be an Americanism.

    • Judy says:

      05:23pm | 12/07/12

      That one annoys me too, especially as it’s so easy to remember: ‘lose’ has lost an ‘o’.

    • Chris L says:

      02:13pm | 13/07/12

      @Stephen - I think this example is referring to an affectation which would make the word “affect” acceptable.

    • Brian says:

      06:05pm | 13/07/12

      Nope stephen, Affect can be a noun. It means ‘an emotion, as distinct from a thought or action’  as defined by my copy of the Oxford English Dictionary…

    • Bertrand says:

      04:16pm | 12/07/12

      I know the rules of writing and generally stick to them. Although, every once in a while a mistake slips past. I found an errant apostrophe in one of my posts yesterday. Oh well, it’s not a big deal.

      I hate seeing the grammar Nazis correcting people’s grammar in an online debate. Pointing out that someone used the word effect instead of affect doesn’t further your thesis, it just makes you look like a smug prick who needs to resort to picking on grammar because of the paucity of your argument.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      04:20pm | 12/07/12

      Newspaper urgently requires poofreader for immediate start.

      Reply

    • Gordon says:

      05:38pm | 12/07/12

      ...must be fastidiously anal about mistakes.

    • Michael S says:

      04:20pm | 12/07/12

      As someone who participates in a lot of sporting forums, one grammatic faux pas that seems to be increasingly used and which I can’t stand, is to say a team is “versing” another - such as “GWS Giants are versing Adelaide at Skoda Stadium on Sunday”.
      No, the Giants are playing against Adelaide. If they were versing Adelaide, they’d be reading them poetry.

      (Maybe we should have had a poetry recital rather than a footy game against Hawthorn last week)......

      Reply

    • Horthy says:

      04:41pm | 12/07/12

      My major gripe is when sporting commentators proclaim:

      “Team A won by five goals to three”.

      ...when they should say either:

      “Team A won: five goals to three”

      or:

      “Team A won by two goals”

    • hot tub political machine says:

      04:57pm | 12/07/12

      Haha, you need to get some of the old Shaun Micalleuf material where he plays an art critic interviewing AFL players after the game. Some of the best comedy ever produced in Australia.

      SM: So I understand one of your better players John Smith was unavailabe today due to an injury?

      AFL Player: Yeah Smithie had a groin.

      SM: Oh, I’m sorry I wasn’t aware that having a groin prevents one from playing Australian Rules. When did “Smithie” have his removed?

    • Ben says:

      05:06pm | 12/07/12

      >>As someone who participates in a lot of sporting forums, one grammatic faux pas that seems to be increasingly used…

      The faux pas participates in a lot of sporting forums?

    • Arnold Layne says:

      05:40pm | 12/07/12

      You’re on to one there Horthy.  There are also some who say “Team A had a 30 to 18 point victory”, which makes no sense at all.  It should be “Team A won by 30 points to 18” or “Team A had a 12 point win”.

      Versing get me fired up, because it’s an (understandable) way that kids try to turn the word “versus” into a verb.  It’s easily corrected in childhood.

      Just because you pronounce “Could have” as “Could of” doesn’t mean you spell it that way.

      The EPG on Fox Sports has listed ESPN Friday night boxing as “Classic’s boxing” as long as I can remember, and it has never been fixed.

    • Bertrand says:

      08:45pm | 12/07/12

      Sports commentators who use the word ironic to describe something that is merely coincidental.

    • Markus says:

      08:51am | 13/07/12

      Players/coaches/commentators who use the word ‘surreal’ to describe something slightly unexpected, or just pleasantly surprising.

      @htpm, Micallef is a genius. I haven’t seen that in over a decade but still remember it. It even included one of my other gripes: people who use the word ‘literally’ for something that is metaphorical.
      AFL player: We LITERALLY had them in the palm of our hands!

    • hot tub political machine says:

      11:09am | 13/07/12

      Markus, Jamie Redknapp - a soccer commentator in the U.K. is famous for having a very long list of crimes against the word literally.

      The best being “Michael Owen literally has no left foot”

    • iansand says:

      04:22pm | 12/07/12

      It is all aboiut accurate communication.  Sometimes grammar and spelling make a difference.  Sometimes they are affectation.  Not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions are examples of the latter, but if a grammatical or spelling error means that you have to think, even for a nanosecond, to understand the meaning you have the former.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      04:22pm | 12/07/12

      It is all about accurate communication.  Sometimes grammar and spelling make a difference.  Sometimes they are affectation.  Not splitting infinitives and not ending sentences with prepositions are examples of the latter, but if a grammatical or spelling error means that you have to think, even for a nanosecond, to understand the meaning you have the former.

      Reply

    • Babylon in Canberra says:

      04:28pm | 12/07/12

      Automatic grammar and spell checker stuffs me up all the time.

      Anyone know how to switch them off on an iPhone?

      Reply

    • pa_kelvin says:

      05:26pm | 12/07/12

      Ask Shane Warne ,bet he knows.

    • hot tub political machine says:

      04:31pm | 12/07/12

      The errors you’ve listed here are relatively harmless and fairly amusing.

      I don’t think any of us readers are too concerned about that. What worries us is media watch type errors.

      The kind that unfairly ruins some poor persons reputation and makes their life a living hell - when they are innocent.

      Or for me a constant bug bear is the utter ignorance of journalists about how to interpret research. You will see an article which states that the findings of the research are statistically signifcant and demonstrate causality (except that journalist using inappropriate vocabularly when saying this. Look up the original research article and you will see that that the conclusion state that the research is *not* statistically significat (I guess a journalist who thinks they’ve got an interesting story just chooses not to read/hear the word not?) and does not prove causality.

      Or even worse…...the dreaded and far too frequent “report that the research shows exactly the opposite of what it does in fact show” *shudder*

      I’ve said before - researches need to quizz journalists about whether they understand what a p value is. Should the journalist say no…..the researcher needs to hang up or stay on the line and plead for the journo to quote the researcher verbatim.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      05:06pm | 12/07/12

      Well, my own preference would be for journalists to have degrees in an actual specialist field - history, economics, science, law - before they can get into a journalism program.  While I think good grammar is important, I rate knowledge and analytical ability much more highly than I do spelling.

    • hot tub politcal machine says:

      06:03pm | 12/07/12

      Haha, utter gold Jason.

    • gary says:

      06:24pm | 12/07/12

      My personal preference is for journalists to be factual.

      I don’t care if they can’t spell or know what grammar is.

    • LJ Dots says:

      09:49pm | 12/07/12

      Thanks Jason, that’s going straight to the printer.

    • Jason Todd says:

      08:54am | 13/07/12

      I don’t think journalists need specialised degrees. I’d just like to see at some point in my lifetime, if a news story quotes a piece of primary research, it should link directly to same. That way, you can assess the evidence yourself.

    • Cassandra says:

      04:34pm | 12/07/12

      Affect is also a noun. Someone’s affect is their mood or emotion, with the implication being that the mood was influenced by something. The difference between affect and effect is that affect relates to emotion while effect relates to action.

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      04:40pm | 12/07/12

      I never knew weather had anything to do with trains!

      Reply

    • Gordon says:

      05:46pm | 12/07/12

      I guess you could rail against the bad weather making your train run late. Particularly if you are a farmer and you have to be home to get the wethers in before the hail comes down.

    • Lee says:

      04:41pm | 12/07/12

      Subs don’t just catch typos. I was reading breaking news from home one day and realised the news site had named the wrong person in the headline of an article about a drug bust. I called and spoke to the news editor. It took me 10 minutes to convince him to change that headline fast to avoid legal problems. I was astonished that he didn’t understand at first.

      Reply

    • DexteR says:

      04:54pm | 12/07/12

      concerns rail, hail & shine???? not sure why there’s a train in there?

      Reply

    • Greg says:

      04:57pm | 12/07/12

      My favourite is sports people who announce on their twitter accounts that they have resigned instead of re-signed

      Reply

    • Alfie says:

      05:00pm | 12/07/12

      I hate friggin grammar Nazis, full friggin stop.

      Some of us have a real life.

      Reply

    • Arnold Layne says:

      05:29pm | 12/07/12

      Hopefully your real life doesn’t involve the quality of your written word being judged.  Someone who writes for a living quite rightly should be held to account for it.  The news ticker bars across the bottom of news and sports programs are littered with spelling mistakes, errant apostrophes and a disturbing need to use the present tense for everything, even when it doesn’t make sense that way.

      If your job is to build, dig, drive, or whatever, then it’s acceptable if your spelling or grammar is less than perfect.  That’s not so for journos.  If people posting reponses to blogs want to be taken seriously, it helps a lot if they don’t make basic spelling and grammatical errors.  Anyone arguing about someone’s incorrect use of split infinitives could arguably be classed as a grammar Nazi.  Pointing out errant apostrophes and basic stuff like “could of” v “could have” is merely not anywhere near that level and is insulting.

    • Alfie says:

      06:40pm | 12/07/12

      Sorry Arnold. I would like to stay and chew the fat, but alas, as I said, I have a life. I will have to leave you playing with your dingus.

      BTW spare me the insults about my background, you know nothing of me you pompous twit.

    • Tony says:

      07:01pm | 12/07/12

      That should be friggin’.

    • Alfie says:

      08:30pm | 12/07/12

      Sorry Tony, you friggin’ Nazi.

    • Caedrel says:

      11:41am | 13/07/12

      “You know nothing about me” - Actually, just from your two posts here, we know you like calling people Nazis, and swearing, and don’t react well to constructive feedback… I hope you enjoy your “real life”, because I suspect the others in it don’t enjoy your “contribution” to it…

    • Alfie says:

      12:51pm | 13/07/12

      @Caedrel

      Funny, I don’t seem to recall asking for your opinion. Yet, from my two posts, you form broad assumptions about my life. If I were to judge your character, I would guess that you not very bright.

    • MarkS says:

      01:52pm | 13/07/12

      All hail Alfie. The grammer goebbels can go and split infinitive themselves.

    • Master says:

      05:02pm | 12/07/12

      6.5 Years as a journalist and you’re writing an opinion piece explaining that you’re a grammar Nazi. Here’s hoping the next 6.5 are more productive…

      Reply

    • Terry2 says:

      05:08pm | 12/07/12

      Up here, the avocado season is in full swing with roadside stalls advertising avo’s for sale and this presages the mango season when we will be offered mango’s for sale.

      Reply

    • Mango lover says:

      09:24am | 13/07/12

      Avo’s could be seen as a contraction of avocados but mango’s?

    • 26 years a journo says:

      05:09pm | 12/07/12

      “Being first is everything.” What? That’s utter bullshit.
      Being correct, fair, balanced and thorough is everything, and being able to spell should be a given, so please don’t try to defend the indefensible. Do you think your excusing crap grammar would wash with Rupert Murdoch?
      Now, back to your claim that being first is “everything”: show us the data that proves shoving some story up on your site one minute or three minutes (surely enough time to proof read 350 words) ahead of your competition translates to $ and Walkley awards. Go on ... we’ll wait.
      You underestimate the reader. The reader knows the difference between good and crap, and they will always go back for more of the good.

      Reply

    • gary says:

      06:27pm | 12/07/12

      Well said
      Unfortunately there are many who go back for the crap that supports their beliefs.
      I’m looking at you lewis piers and bolt.

    • nw says:

      08:51am | 13/07/12

      26 years, could not have said it better myself (30 years here).

      Really, the fault lies with their superiors who haven’t the balls to chew them out over their mistakes. It’s another worrying example of the near-enough-is-good-enough generation. Sigh.

      I wonder what Chris Mitchell, a former chief sub-editor, makes of all of this?

    • Andrew says:

      05:20pm | 12/07/12

      The problem I have is not that grammar mistakes get through, but that large amounts of highly incorrect material is published, implicating certain people \ groups in events or overstating \ understating the size of an event (depending on which agenda is been pushed), or making pretty glaringly obvious mistakes with details. I think it’s even worse when you guys then do update the story (perhaps because of a knock at the door by a lawyer) you simply make a change, without acknowledging that correction.

      In years gone past, newspapers used to make a correction in later editions if a mistake was found. These days it seems to be that all you do is update the story and hope that no one noticed the previous version had mistakes in it.

      Reply

    • EWB says:

      05:21pm | 12/07/12

      I’m reading Trainspotting at the moment, a book which would surely cause a grammer nazi’s eyes to melt and head to spontaneously combust.  If you suffer from the aforementioned affiliation with linguistic National Socialism, I suggest you look away now…
      And I quote:
      “Funny scene, likesay, how aw the psychos seem tae ken each other, ken what ah means, likes?”

      Reply

    • Bertrand says:

      05:42pm | 12/07/12

      Yeah, I had to give up on that book, which is a shame because the movie is fantastic. It literally gave me a headache reading it.

      Another one is Peter Carey’s ‘True History of the Kelly Gang.’ I gave up on that one too.

    • Alfie says:

      05:42pm | 12/07/12

      EWB I think that ken = care.

      Have you got to the bit where they are doing the James Bond accent, and shoot the dog in the nuts? So funny…

    • stephen says:

      06:36pm | 12/07/12

      You think that’s bad you should try reading ‘Waverley’ by Sir Walter Scott.
      It is an old book and a very good one, but the Highland dialects on the page were flabbergasting, and it took me 1 month to read it.

    • Bertrand says:

      06:44pm | 12/07/12

      My post reminded me of one of my pet hates - the misuse of the word ‘literally’.

      It literally makes my head explode.

    • Rifraf says:

      07:00pm | 12/07/12

      Ken means ‘know’.

    • Testfest says:

      10:08am | 13/07/12

      EWB,

      I don’t think that Trainspotting is a good example of poor grammar. The author was deliberately writing all dialogue in an authentic Scottish accent.

      I will certainly agree that it didn’t make it easy to read, but you can’t complain about the grammar.

    • TracyH says:

      11:20am | 13/07/12

      A fantastic book…loved it immensely! Once you get used to it, the language really puts you in their headspace.

    • Gordon says:

      11:38am | 13/07/12

      Re the Peter Carey…I think the Kelly Gang book was written in the style of Kelly’s Jerilderie letter: being written when & by whom it was it’s a somewhat agrammatical rant.  Carey is not usually guilty of careless errors but his style does not sit well with some folk.

    • Roberta says:

      05:43pm | 12/07/12

      Mutch fus has been done in regarding the standed of english from kid’s what are leeving school’s these day’s l8ly but honnestly I cant see whats all the fus about for?

      So long as you can understand whats sed is the m,ain thing and I migt just be interested to let you knowe that most of the top kid’s like me have now got reely good job’s in advetissing and pR stuff so just stop being all jellus

      Reply

    • nankypoo says:

      05:48pm | 12/07/12

      It’s = It is
      Its = belonging to it.

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      06:29pm | 12/07/12

      Similar to know the difference between Your Crap and You’re Crap

    • stephen says:

      11:31pm | 13/07/12

      Poo and pooh ?

    • Haydz says:

      06:03pm | 12/07/12

      I’m pretty sure in your enviable amount of wit you deliberately left a few mistakes in this piece for us to pick up on… so I’m not going to play this game. Nice piece, and yes, your world is changing frequently.

      P.S. my sister is terrible at getting to/too correct… to the point where she deliberatly writes ‘2’ regardless of which too/to she wants when texting me.

      Also, ‘then’ is NOT a substitute for ‘than’ - Americans seem to love this one for some reason. eg. “I’d rather not read then have to put up with bad grammar” - so wrong!

      Reply

    • C'mon says:

      08:36pm | 12/07/12

      But you aren’t a journalist.

      You’re just an opinion columnist.

      A filler.  Fluff. A teaser.

      Just one more rabbiting, up yourself, News Ltd opinion yapdog.


      Gah.

      Reply

    • marley says:

      07:47am | 13/07/12

      I don’t know how to break it to you, but the term “journalist” covers columnists and opinion writers.

      And he’s commenting on an article in the Fairfax press, written by an editor with 35 years’ experience as, guess what, a journalist.

      So, we have two journalists commenting about an issue that drives many readers mad.  That you don’t care about grammar doesn’t make an article on it a fluff piece.

    • Steve says:

      08:43pm | 12/07/12

      Wait, you’re a journalist? But what about the story on Andrew Bogut having issues with his Telstra connection?

      Reply

    • Blazes says:

      09:57pm | 12/07/12

      Soryr for the spellign mistakes, but my spell chekcer is il (sic).

      Reply

    • Vicki PS says:

      11:12pm | 12/07/12

      I get that language is fluid and changes over time.  I get that it is perfectly correct these days to use a less formal style, especially in digital media.  What I do NOT get is allowing errors of ignorance or sloppy vernacular to go unremarked and uncorrected.  For example, a journo for the online version of a regional newspaper recently wrote that a burglar had “snuck in” to the victim’s home.  Well, really!  Errors such as the use of “incidence/s” instead of incident/s; non-words such as “agreeance” to mean agreement; mis-spellings like “wrapped/wrapt” for rapt and so on are commonplace and have even begun to afflict the ABC.  Harumph!

      Reply

    • Roberta says:

      10:39am | 13/07/12

      Hey Vicki PS! You might have to kinda get used to “snuck”.

      Like I’ve had to concede defeat hearing young girls running after others yelling, “Hey guys – wait up or we won’t be doing jump rope anytime soon.”

      We’re becoming the 51st state of the good ol’ US of A language-wise and, yes, the ABC is falling victim to the influence.

      Also, I’m hearing “haitch” far too often in the electronic media. It makes me cringe.

    • marley says:

      09:20am | 14/07/12

      Hrrmmph indeed.  Nothing wrong with “snuck.”  It’s not “sloppy” or even “venacular.”.  It’s been around for a long, long time, to the point that it’s become standard English, American (and Canadian) English admittedly, but English nonetheless.

    • Susannah says:

      08:30am | 13/07/12

      Chris Paine, there’s more to being a good sub-editor than just picking up typos and correcting grammar. I was a sub for over 20 years and if the quality of the copy I’ve seen in the past five years is anything to go by (some writers can’t even be bothered to get the spelling of their interviewee’s name right, never mind other facts), media companies might need to re-think treating subs as disposable, ie, once the libel suits start arriving.

      Reply

    • nw says:

      08:46am | 13/07/12

      Biggest irony? Paragraph four: “... And without being flippant and without making excuses, guess what? We’re going to mistakes…”

      Going to mistakes? Is that a place?

      For more amusement, click on Ben English’s yarn that heads this site. There you’ll find ‘accomodation’ and ‘nighty’.

      And to young Chris Paine, a tip: See the red lines underneath some of the words you’ve written, or even the green lines? It’s screaming at you that you’ve made some errors.

      Really not that hard.

      Reply

    • pete says:

      09:13am | 13/07/12

      Dude, I just read one of your articles at news.com.au. Grammar and spelling are the least of your worries. Reporting on Warnie’s twitter account, then gathering quotes from the aggrieved to cobble together a banal piece of nonsense?

      Fair dinkum.

      Reply
 
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