I’m Not Easily Offended, but. . .

. . . no! Really! *heh*

Anywho. . .

A writing team–husband and wife–whose books I really enjoy nevertheless have some really annoying habits. “Though all at [place name] are not actively hostile, [blah,blah]” is one. No, “though NOT ALL at [place name] are. . .” The first formulation simply does not work. The first formulation simply and plainly (and nonsensically) means NO ONE AT [place name] is hostile, when the context is one of describing a hostile environment!

That’s just dumb, and some proofreader or editor should have caught that.

Then there are the many annoying misuses of “I”. For example, “some [x]s are not like you and I.” Parse that without the “you.” “Some [x]s are not like I.” Stupid, right? These are not stupid people writing these things, but they are just not literate enough to notice some of the stupid things they write. Consistently. They appear to genuinely think these constructions make sense.

Sadly, they are also very, very, very good storytellers, so these sorts of things are being almost subliminally taught to their hordes of fans.

That’s just sad.

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