I find so many errors in internet articles. Obviously proofreaders no longer exist and Spellcheck rules!
‘Best-Selling Cars in the World’
I knew the winner was Toyota Corolla. I was not surprised that the Europe winner was the Volkswagen Golf as it is license produced in 2 countries I know of ( Czech Republic, Skoda and Spain, SEAT. Apparently no one has heard of a Volkswagen “GULF”!
Most Popular in Europe: 2017 Volkswagen Gulf
If you have watched British television, you are probably familiar with the endearingly simple Volkswagen Gulf. The sedans were originally typically boxy, but models since the mid-1990s have embraced their curves. In 1992, this vehicle won the European Car of the Year award.
On a similar note, when I was a kid, I was extremely confused when I heard adults referring to the “Golf” gas station in town.
My mother was very strict about our pronunciations, so I asked her how to pronounce the name of that particular brand of gas, and–of course–she said “Gulf”. When I informed her that a lot of our neighbors couldn’t correctly pronounce “Gulf”, she advised me to ignore those neighbors, and she was prudent enough to not mention that those folks were–at best–only semi-literate.
Those were the same people who talked about “corrode” on their battery terminals, and would occasionally mention that they had to replace their car’s “sellenoid”. They also used “Karosene” for cleaning purposes, and I have to assume that it was made from Karo syrup.
It’s not just internet articles sadly lacking in professional proofreading and editing, the volume of major grammatical and spelling errors in printed books in recent years is rapidly worsening. When I read new books from the library I am so tempted to take a pen and mark corrections of the most egregious errors.
To keep my comment at least marginally car related, I drive my car to and from both the library and bookstore.
All of this compromised literacy is not really a new problem. Back in 2005, my supervisor tasked me with screening job applicants for whether or not they deserved to be followed-up with an interview. One of the applicants stated in his cover letter that he was responding to our “Help Wanted Add”. I immediately tossed his letter and resume in the trash.
Apparently he later spoke to my supervisor on the phone, and when she asked me why he hadn’t been contacted, I informed my supervisor of the circumstances. She agreed to me that this semi-literate idiot couldn’t be trusted to draft our legal documents.
I know multiple family, friends, and co-workers age fifty or so and older who never finished high school, some who never went past sixth to eighth grade, more accurately literate in reading comprehension and writing composition than most young college graduates I have worked with in recent years.
I guess that I shouldn’t mention that one of our regular forum posters clearly doesn’t know the difference between “than” and “then”, and that a couple of other forum members think that you form a plural by inserting an apostrophe into a word.
(Hint: The plural of car is not “car’s”, the plural of transmission is not “transmission’s”, and so on…)
I don’t consider forum posting written errors as egregious as I do errors that occur in supposedly professional publications online, in hard copy, and in business correspondence. As long as the poster is commenting in reasonably comprehensible wording, grammar, punctuation, and spelling, I may flinch at errors but do not get worked up about them. I’m rather prone to typos I don’t catch before I post, especially when texting.
However, we have seen quite an increase of sadly incomprehensible posts by newcomers here in the forum the past few years. I assume much of that is due to the influence on overall writing skills of texting norms.
Not to defend the current condition of higher learning institutes but a lot of these articles are written by robots who don’t know the difference between golf and gulf. As long as it is in their (not there, they’re) dictionary, it passes. And no proof readers anymore. I used to have a girl who had been a proof reader, read all my stuff first and it was amazing what she caught. Our Finance Director wasn’t so fortunate though so I would send the corrections back to him just so he knew and could be a little more careful next time. Can you imagine, I never even got a thank you???
Edit: Plus articles are simply picked up from the wire and reprinted to use. Then you gotta remember that there are only five major corps that own 90% of the media so what happens in one office is simply redistributed among their friends.
If a post here can be deciphered on the first read I just ignore any incorrect spelling, punctuation and grammar and move on to address the problem while those that escape understanding get passed over for the most part.
And I think back to all the applications over the years that I read from mechanics hoping to be hired whose efforts at filling out such a simple standard form proved to be lacking although as I recall all had graduated high school. It has for many years seemed that a basic education in the 1960s was considerably better than in more recent years.
There is no cure for stupidity but ignorance can be overcome with the proper effort from the student and instructors… IMHO
We don’t see it on this site, that I am aware of, automotive “experts” referring to the Studebaker 289 as a Ford 289. BTW, I use quotation marks because I do not know how to switch font to italics on an iPad.
Another peeve, when people refer to any other tablet as an iPad.
