Lately, I've been reading my way through the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan. I don't see what all the fuss is about, but then, I'm not the intended age target.
Structurally, they're clearly derivative of the Harry Potter series (outsider boy with powers he didn't know about meets extra smart girl at a school/camp and ends up trying to keep an evil lord from coming back into power). I hear they get better as they go along, so I'm giving them a chance to convince me.
But meanwhile, I had to comment on one textual error that I found:
I don't remember seeing any other typos or grammos along the way, but this one is a doozy. "I'd just assume keep it" -- ? Did you mean "I'd just as soon keep it," copy editors?
This doesn't even qualify as an eggcorn, because it doesn't make any sense.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Percy Jackson and the Grammo of Stupidity
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I wonder if it results from using Mac Dictation. I just tried “I’d just as soon keep it” and got “I’d just assume keep it,” three times. Or could it be someone saying ”I’d just assume ‘Keep it’”? In other words, that the thing to do is to keep it?
The problem with Dictation, as I’ve found more often than I’d like, is that it introduces errors that are difficult to find because they're so unpredictable. And, if you’re looking at what you’re reading, you don’t catch them as they go on the screen.
That could be the source. But the books in general are so well copy-edited (compared to most that I see).... it's hard to believe the editors missed it.
Garner puts "just assume" at Stage 1 of the language change index and calls it an "unintelligible malapropism." I'd never heard/read it until this instance.
OMG, why didn’t I think to check Garner? I guess because I couldn’t imagine it as a genuine mistake. I took for granite that it was a glitch of some sort. :)
Post a Comment