It's a Penny Arcade trifecta!

I've read a few reviews of F3AR this morning, and so I was interested to see what the guys at Penny Arcade had to say about it. It looks like an interesting concept, and I am looking forward to my chance to check it out. While reading Tycho's thoughts, I came across 3 different grammatical errors I would like to address here. Now, Penny Arcade posts generally take a lighter, conversational tone, but that doesn't mean they can completely throw out the rules of grammar.

First of all, Tycho left out a word. While in some cases, this is acceptable for the conversational tone of their work, in this case, it appears to be completely unintentional and interrupts the flow of the piece:
Each you conquer a level, you are allowed to play that level as “Paxton Fettel,” a kind of ravening superghost core to the fiction. (The word missing here is "time," as in "Each time you...")

Not too much further in the article - in the very next sentence, actually - he again omits a word. Though it does fit with the conversational tone, it fails to fit the parallel structure of a list.
He can hoist enemies on a cord of spectral blood, possess human hosts, and a couple other tricks.
Each of the actions listed begins with a verb except the last one. Taken on its own, this is an incomplete statement ("He can a couple other tricks"), necessitating the use of the verb do.

And finally, Tycho is the victim of one of the more common mistakes: tense shifting. He explains a situation in the present tense, then inexplicably switches to past tense.
[Expletive] Run is a four player race against a Wave of Mutilation that ends the round if it touched any member of your team (I edited the expletive out of the title - this is a family-friendly blog, after all).
The correct statement would be to have both of these verbs in the present tense. This is the same trick used in literary criticism - historical context is in past tense ("Shakespeare wrote"), but the internal narrative is present tense ("Romeo goes").

Source: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/6/24/enervator/

The E3 Edition, part 1

During E3, there are loads of announcements coming from all parts of the industry. This can be a lot to keep up with for any news outlet, and mistakes will happen. Case in point: the following was found in a follow-up article on the newly-announced title Fable: The Journey.

What about the Fable series' two other offensize components, shooting and melee?

Source:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/08/fable-the-journey-preview-speak-and-spell/

Strike that, reverse it

As a bit of a genealogy buff (I've done my share of family history research), I had to cringe a bit when reading an otherwise excellent report about the new Assassin's Creed game. Joystiq's own Editor-in-Chief, Chris Grant wrote:

"In Revelations, you'll play as both 12th century stabber Altair and his 16th century ancestor Ezio..."

Ignoring the missing comma for the appellative, there is a major confusion of terminology here.

For those unfamiliar with the genealogy terms, 'ancestor' refers to a relative from a previous generation, while 'descendant' is one of a future generation. Analogues to these would be 'forefathers' and 'progeny,' respectively.

So the correct statement would be that you play as Altair and his descendant, Ezio.

Source:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/06/assassins-creed-revelations-details-from-gi-hookblades-bom/

It's a double!

I had been waiting to read Major Spoilers' review of Amazing Spider-Man #656 until I had a chance to read the issue first, so this post goes back a few days. The very first sentence in this article is a bit incomplete: The Walking Massacre’s story isn’t a new one – way back in the Phineas Gage had a railroad spike blow through his head. It's pretty clear that we're missing the object of that preposition, probably something like "back in the day..." Soon after that, Mr. Schleicher misses an important possessive: Mayor J. Jonah Jameson, who recently lost his wife during Alistair Smythe recent rampage, is taking it upon himself to be the judge and jury in all matters concerning those who take a life. Friends of the series know that it was Alistair Smythe who killed Mrs. Jameson, making it "Alistair Smythe's recent rampage." Source: http://www.majorspoilers.com/review-the-amazing-spider-man-656

Where do I go from here?

Since I started this blog, I had hoped that I would be able to somehow use it to generate revenue, either through pay-per-click ads, or by gaining enough interest and prestige to become a full-time editor. Neither of those have worked out for me so far. I understand, of course, that I need to work on producing content more regularly to reach either of those goals.

My question now, is: What content do you want to see here? I noticed while reviewing my blog traffic that a majority of my hits are coming from outside the U.S., places like Brazil, Switzerland, even Nepal. This got me to wondering about how and why these visitors are reading my site. Could it be that they're foreign-language speakers actually looking for tips on the intricacies and minutiae of English grammar?

So, once again, I'll open it up to you, my readers. What would you like to see more of? Less of? How did you find my blog? And how do you like what you've seen so far?

Multiple Infractions

I like reading Penny Arcade. It generally has interesting discussions and fun comics. While reading one of their new posts, I couldn't help but notice a few glaring errors. While they probably have a large enough loyal reader base that doesn't care about things like grammar, I would hope they still take a few minutes to proofread the posts.

First infraction: failing to capitalize the first word of a sentence.
You think we’ve caved into to pressure from a vocal minority and you’re not entirely wrong. let me at least break down why we did it though.


Second infraction: failing to separate items in a list.
If jokes about violence,rape,aids,pedophilia,bestiality,drugs,cancer,homosexuality, and religion bother you then I recommend reading a different webcomic.

In addition to being a basic grammar mistake, this also affects the page appearance, as the browser views this list as a single word, creating unnecessary blank space at the end of a line, where at least a few of these items could fit. (See the following screenshot for reference.)


Third infraction: using sentence fragments.
We want PAX to be a place were everyone feels welcome and we’ve worked really hard to make that happen. From not allowing booth babes to making sure we have panels that represent all our attendees.

The fragment here is a complete thought, continuing that of the previous sentence and should be a subclause rather than a fragment: "... make that happen, from not allowing..."

Any simple word processor with a spell/grammar checker should catch these errors.

Source:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2011/1/28/dickwolves

Back to the Grind

Every once in a while, I get a bit of an itch to check my traffic, and I've noticed that even though I haven't posted here in a while (I know I promised to in my last post), I'm still getting a fair number of visits. Obviously, I've done something right to keep getting noticed like that, so I'm going to keep trying to update here.

I've been doing some translations recently and it's gotten me to think about idioms - words or phrases that have a completely different literal meaning than what they're commonly used for. I started making a list, mostly from books/blogs I've been reading or podcasts I've been listening to. So, in no particular order, here are a few that've caught my attention:

"in my wheelhouse" - This may be a regional thing, but I'd never heard this one before, and I've really only heard it from one particular podcaster. The idea here is that something "in my wheelhouse" is something that I really enjoy, that fits my interests. This brings me to:

"up my alley" - Similar in meaning (if not identical) to the previous phrase, but I essentially grew up hearing this. Again, might be due to regional differences.

"sawbones" - This is a colloquial term used for a doctor, more specifically a surgeon.

Then there are various drug references, such as "doobie," "roach," and "weed."

As I came across these, I couldn't help wonder how I would translate these into German. I could go for the functional version, translating the meaning rather than the phrase (i.e. "surgeon" for "sawbones), but it feels a lot more formal.

I'll try and keep posting these as they come up. If you have any suggestions for the translations, or want to provide more idioms for discussion, please feel free to comment.