Pitfalls of court reporting

[Kyung]

One of the pitfalls of court reporting is that you tend to start proofing everything you read. I was looking at a theater program the other day, and they wrote your instead of you're.

When I read newspapers, especially, the local ones, I'm always ranting and raving to my husband that I don't know who's doing the proofing on this stuff, but they're bad!!!

You end up compulsively reading and re-reading anything you write for typos. When I read books, and they've made a mistake, I oftentimes want to call up the publisher and tell them. Of course, I realize that's a little over the top, but I just can't help myself.

[Shannon Wise]

What about the Smith's, the Brown's? That drives me nuts. I always want to take a big black marker and fix it on the mailboxes. Out here in the Hill Country, people have these big iron gates with an apostrophe at the end of their name done in iron. I have the urge to leave them notes and tell them they've got a typo on their entrance. Oops!!

[Brenda Rogers]

feel SO outnumbered and anal!

Now, *there's* the pitfalls of court reporting! lol

[Quyen]

Misuse of your, you're, to, too, woman, women, advice, advise, effect, affect, all drive me just freakin' nuts, and it's like a thorn in my eye when I come across them! I used to bring it to the attention of the offender, but because of the widespread misuse ... I feel SO outnumbered and anal! :P

[Rhoda Collins]

My SIL just did a family picnic flyer....bring your swim suite! LOL! The FUNNIEST thing is she is GREAT at grammar! LOL! I razzed her about it. ;)
Rho

[Brenda Rogers]

The red pen in my mind is always busy! The problem with improper usage of your/you're, their/they're is that I get to that word as I'm reading along and it's like I've run headlong into a brick wall. SLAM! I'm stopped dead in my tracks because it doesn't make sense, and I back up and read the preceding portion again. It takes me three times doing that before I can force myself to read ahead and through the problem. The first time I noticed myself doing that was years before I got into reporting school. You'd think I'd accept it by now.

[Patricia Babits]

I don't like when people put in apostrophes for plurals.

I find a lot of mistakes in my kid's handouts from school, and it bugs me. I was an English major. People always think you're anal about grammar as an English major. I wasn't one bit until court reporting!