A. James Editing, Inc.

By now we’ve all at least heard something about the last minute budget deal made by members of Congress that subsequently led to the downgrade of the Unites States’ credit rating.


What you may not have heard much about, however, is how the slumping stock market apparently lends itself to sloppy copy.


I was keeping abreast of the latest on this falling Dow situation with this MSN article, when I stumbled across this gem:

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ($INX) and the Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) fell as much as 4% before losses were trimmed to around 3%. Stocks in Asian and Europe also slumped.

Correct me if I’m wrong (no really, I want you to), but “Asian” is an adjective just like the words “European” and “American” would be. “Europe” in the second sentence, on the other hand, is a proper noun. It would appear that “Asian” was meant to be “Asia”, also a proper noun.


There are two ways this sentence could be corrected:

Stocks in Asia and Europe also slumped.

Or:

Asian and European stocks also slumped.

Neither sentence is necessarily better or worse than the other, but unlike the published sentence, both of these are grammatically correct.


Hey, it ain’t bragging if it’s true! (At least that’s what my teammates said about this.)


You could say that the writer should have known better or that the proofreader should have caught it, but the truth is, shit happens.


Sometimes you can stop it and sometimes you just have to suck up your mistakes and keep on keepin’ on.


Luckily we can all sleep sounder tonight knowing there’s people like me on the front lines of the Grammar Wars.

I met with a prospective client last night and she commented on how futuristic she found “the whole social media thing” to be. I wonder what she would think of this video. Courtesy of Emma.

In an effort to ease its budget crisis and reduce its $419 billion debt, the Greek government has approved a series of drastic tax increases and spending cuts. The Greek people, however, were not asked what they thought of the plan and are rising up in protest at the cuts to their income.

Much thanks to the BBC for bringing us this important news, but may I offer a soft critique? Hire another proofreader. The few that you have missed some key things in this article.

The three things that I found were the placement of abbreviations, lack of consistency in comma usage and simple grammar. I’ll outline the errors in that order.

The International Monetary Fund is mentioned twice before the abbreviation, IMF, is given. It is common practice in any kind of writing, whether it be thesis, book or online news article, to give the abbreviation immediately after the term first occurs so the writer can then use the abbreviation throughout the rest of the article instead of having to retype the entire term (this might be more important in print media as space per article is very limited).

There are two instances when the author of this article could have used a serial comma (placing a comma after every item in a list) or not. The author used a serial comma the first time, but not the second. Using one over the other is not necessarily right or wrong, but having a lack of consistency in your usage is definitely not professional. Serial comma usage:

The measures include rises in sales taxes, a cut in holiday bonuses paid to civil servants, and a pensions freeze.

No serial comma usage:

Rises in taxes on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol

The last item I noted was a simple grammatical blip; a matter of the word “a” versus the word “an”. In the following case, “An” would be the correct word to use.

A increase in sales tax from 19% to 21%

Good luck to the Greeks in sorting out what is both best for the people and for the future of the country.

As most of you are aware, some Toyota vehicles have a dangerous defect that causes cars to accelerate rather than slow down when the brakes are applied. This new evidence could vindicate Koua Fong Lee of St. Paul, MN whose Toyota Camry hit the back of a car, killing three of its occupants, in 1996. He has been in prison ever since. Read the full Huffington Post article here.

True to form, I found an error in this copy. It’s not a typo this time but a matter of a comma that could have been employed to make this sentence read a little easier.

Attorneys for both the 32-year-old St. Paul man as well as the victims’ families say they’re encouraged by the evidence that the problems went beyond models that originally were recalled.

I would have added a comma after “families” like this:

Attorneys for both the 32-year-old St. Paul man as well as the victims’ families, say they’re encouraged by the evidence that the problems went beyond models that originally were recalled.

That’s all.