After editing countless newsletters, ads and dreaded college theses, things start to get to you. This is for all my fellow proofreaders out there.

1. Unnecessarily punctuated signage

Oh, Kathrine… What would ever possess you to make “candle” possessive?

2. The autocorrect nightmare

Here’s to sending a text that autocorrects into something incorrect and then cringing at the thought that someone thinks you don’t know how to spell/speak.

3. Super spacing

Yes, I see your random extra spaces. Don’t underestimate my ability to locate and eliminate them. P.S. It’s ONE space after the period if you’re dealing with me – no matter what they taught you in grade school .

4. The Oxford comma dilemma

While we’re at it, if you’re writing ad/newspaper copy, STOP WITH THE OXFORD COMMA. We don’t need extra apostrophes, spaces or commas.

 I’m watching you.

5. “For sell”

John Smith
FOR SELL: size large shirts, 22″ rims and an iPhone 4s case. PM me for pricing.

Facebook has granted me many an opportunity to cringe at fellow friends’ posts. The FB grammar massacre that just so happens to take the cake is the “FOR SELL” phenomenon. Just know that I will never go to your RL yard sell or garage sell. IT’S SALE, PEOPLE!

6. A cApItALizAtiOn CRaze

Some People think it’s Acceptable to capiTalize unIMPORTANT lEtters, wordS Or titles in SentenCes.

My two tips for you are as follows:

A. Job titles DIRECTLY preceding a name ARE capitalized. Those following the name OR set off by commas are ALWAYS and FOREVER lowercased.
B. When in doubt, keep it lowercased. I will fix your mistakes with my magic, wordsmith-empowered digits.

7. Using “whom” to sound more intelligent, not to be grammatically correct

No. Just no.

8. Seeing your own name misspelled. Over. And. Over.

Never mind the pronunciation…

Meera.
Mora.
My-ra.

Jofe.
Joe-fee.
Jaw-fee.

MY NAME IS MAW-RUH JAWF, GUYS.

 

Until next time,
The Queen of Sass
Proofreader