Wednesday, February 07, 2007

More on words - and hotels

In the course of writing the previous post I came across the delightful Dr Grammar site – or rather, I should say, the FAQ section of it, which focuses on the mistakes people use in everyday writing, and aims to clarify the problems and assist those who need assistance to get things right. Dr Grammar died in 2003, but his site lives on (only the ‘Ask a Question’ section, not surprisingly, is no longer available). Dr Grammar’s real name was Jim HiDuke (yup) and he took a rather less than obvious course towards a love of language, having grown up in street gangs.
His concern was for the increasing illiteracy of modern students, and he’s quoted as saying: "More and more students arrive at colleges and universities less-than-prepared for the amount and type of writing required, regardless of the courses they take. This led to many questions about language, usage, and proper attribution of sources from the World Wide Web."
There are a heap of resources on the site, and links to all sorts of other word-interest places. You could spend several days exploring this one, and you can even hear the redoubtable Dr Grammar introduce himself, albeit briefly.
The Bill Walsh he quotes is the author of Lapsing into a Comma, a curmudgeon’s guide to the many things that can go wrong in print – and how to avoid them. Bill has his own blog, of course – who of any importance doesn’t? – and it focuses on copy editors and their needs.
BTW, I mentioned two hotels in my last post. You can find more information on them, too. Corstorphine House, and Claremont House.

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