Appalling spelling in newspapers

I too have noticed some awful spelling mistakes both in the national and local press. My late father was a local newspaper reporter who drummed good spelling into myself and my siblings when we were young. I don't remember seeing any spelling or grammatical errors back in the fifties and sixties. I think good grammar and spelling has disappeared down the Swanee in recent times.

It is slightly mesmerising and I keep doubting myself -especially about the use of commas!

I hope that's not too boring for you, Grannylin. I proof-read my DS2's MBA dissertation which was on 'innovation' and it was sooooo dull!

Thanks Flick.I'm proof reading my sons Phd paper-I'll tell him

Proof readers cost money, spell checkers don't.

Clytie , some people might like the chance to

bare with me .

chortle !!

A couple of factual errors jumped out at me when I was reading my courtesy-of-Gransnet copy of 'The Middlesteins' recently.
Funny how much something like that can upset one
I can't for the life of me even remember what there were now!!!

Or the spellchecker doesn't realise that there is a problem.

Hence the invitation to 'bare with me' or the tendency to 'loose' items.

I think the problem is caused by spellcheckers, as jo says. If you are in a hurry or don't know how the word is spelled in the first place, the spellchecker puts in anything that takes its fancy. As we all know on GN.

However, to be fair, things do sometimes slip down the cracks. The very first books I ever edited were a set of three about air, sea and land animals. At the very last minute, for technical reasons, the pictures on the endpapers (pages stuck inside the back and front covers) were changed. I never saw the ozalid proofs of the two sections of the books together. Consequently, the land animals book was published with a stunning picture of badgers and a caption saying skunks.

dorsetpennt Obviously that publisher doesn't employ editors either. However, I quite recently pointed out a glaring factual error in a book I was copy editing but was overridden by the slip of gel half my age and with hardly any experience or knowledge of the subject in the publisher's office.

Are there still proof readers and 'readers' in the publishing section? I read a book by a very well known author and came across a glaring error. In an instance during the book the author mentioned her character e-mailing someone. Judging by the time this incident took place I knew for a fact that there was no e-mailing or internet access to the general public at this time. There were personal computors but this facility at not been made available yet. I wrote to the publishers themselves, as this is the sort of thing a 'reader' would have highlighted and the author requested to change in his/her book. I had a reader friend and this was part of her job, as well as checking grammer,punctuation, she checked facts.
I had a very nice letter from the publishers saying that others had also pointed this out, and further issues of the book will have been changed. Didn't offer me job though

Why doesn't spell check/ grammer check kick in?

My brother was a type setter he did his apprenticeship during the old fashioned metal letter days.
He is now a proof reader for technical journals and banking literature.

I check and recheck when I text him

Dreadful.

I don't believe it's a sign of age to be shocked, either! One of the younger volunteers at my charity shop was telling me, with a mix of amusement and disgust, that her local supermarket has recently introduced a section for "Women's cloths".

Let's hope the tabloids give up those jibes about the 'Grauniad'! Pot and kettle occur to me.

I used to proof read for my father's paper - but not backwards, we would check what were called "galley-proofs" columns printed off roughly. I even learned the different symbols to use - but alas, like too many things, forgotten now.

Reddevil3 In the days before computer setting they had proof-readers. Indeed, at one time newspapers had specialist proof-readers who looked at the formes with the metal type and proof-read them – that's like proof-reading in a mirror. People have just got lazy with computer spell checks which can pick up spelling mistakes but not put them in a meaningful context – hence I new rather than I knew. It's bad enough with newspapers which, for most of us, are fairly inexpensive disposable items, but it also applies to many books these days as well.

Thanks for the welcome*gracesmum*.
Is it a sign of getting old that these things annoy us so much?
As I may have said before, I think I'd like to take part in the programme called "Grumpy Old Women"

Welcome to the banging your head against the wall corner

Perhaps they do it on an I-pad these days. We know what they're like for the spelling.

Reddevil3 Probably not. Newspapers are losing customers (and money) so may well have dispensed with proof-readers and rely on computer spell checks.