No, really, it’s not! *heh*
Authors and proof readers and editors who get paid to write and proof read and edit copy that people then buy from them really have a duty to use words properly. I’ve been struggling through another work that could have used some due diligence from each of these classes of people. The straw that broke the back of my patience was, “…jeopardize it with undo stress…”
That’s “undue stress,” folks. *sigh* Just the last straw (of many) for this book. On the “rejects” pile, now. Time is just too short and my red pencil is wearing to a nubbin. *heh*
I think I lost 3 IQ points trying to give the book a chance. That’s three of nine books that proved to be wasted time this week so far. Not a good set of numbers.
OK, perhaps I was hasty. Lack of sleep? Well, that’s no excuse; I should allow for that. The book with all the absolutely stupid errors of usage, etc., is an advance reader copy and hasn’t been through a final proof for publication yet, so I really need to cut ’em some slack. Or maybe I should offer my “proofed” copy to save ’em some time? *heh* Nah. Only if they pay as piece work for corrections (but then they might lose money on the book… ;-)).
C’mon, tell us which book, from which author. Unless it’s one of mine, that is.
Francis, no, not one of yours. 🙂 I try to make negative comments about books’ failures of word usage, etc., that specify which book directly to the author and publisher (and have done so in this case–nice that now it takes less time, given email as opposed to snail mail, as in days of yore *heh*), unless the book also contains thinly-drawn cardboard stereotypes in place of characters, boring, disgustingly predictable, pedestrian plotting, stupid descriptive narrative and dialog that makes me want to strangle the characters (or put my own eyes out). Actually, any two of those added to execrable usage errors will tip the scale for me.
As it happens, I did recall that the book was an unproofed advance reader copy, and so I really needed to cut the proof reader and editor some slack (although the author still needs to be taken out behind the woodshed a bit *heh*)
I wouldn’t be as gentle with a recent trial I gave Clive Cussler, though. Dreck. Not even pure dreck, which would have a certain morbid appeal. *sigh* Oh, well, is it me? Or is it me, older, unwilling to spend (as much *heh* I still read “news”) time reading crap? I recall a time when I could just stand to read Cussler, if I were watching something interesting on TV or listening to some good music while doing so to cut the dreck. No more.
BTW, I once wasted a good hour waiting for the “techno-fabulous time-wasting” fun to begin in a Dale Brown book before I realized I had mistakenly picked up a piece of something that had exuded from the nether regions of DAN Brown. Now, while Dale Brown books are uniformly fluff with stereotyped characters out the wazoo and completely predictable (and fairly boring) plots, the techno-fantasy machines he manufactures are fun simply for the blue sky technologies. Dan Brown doesn’t even have that going for him. Although the Dan Brown book I wasted an hour on didn’t cost me anything (it was a loaner–I thought my interlocutor asked if I’d read the latest Dale Brown book; I really need to listen, ya know? :-)), I felt like suing Dan Brown for brain damages. Although I will admit, his dreck is very nearly pure.
(chuckle) Some day, psychiatrists we have yet to beget will look back on the fame and success of Dan Brown and say, “Was he stealing from J. K. Rowling’s trash bin?”
(PS: At some point, we must formulate a “theory of pure dreck.” It might be as elusive a notion as “pure sewage,” but the difficulty must not deter us.)
Perhaps a good place to begin the formulation of a Theory of Pure Dreck could start from one brief comment in Holly Lisle’s essay, How To Write Suckitudinous Fiction wherein she comments,
Of course, not all “bad writing” is dreck, either. Some doesn’t rise to that level…
(BTW, the concept of “pure sewage” has already been defined by congressional behavior.)
Well, I hope they’ll change “undo” to “undue” before the final printing.
I have hopes along that line as well, Mel. Of course, I have hopes for many more errors being corrected, too. *heh*
During a stint as a script doctor there were occasions where I doubted that Hollywood and I shared a common language.
*heh* You should never have doubted, Fits. Hollyweird doesn’t speak a human tongue at all.