It's Got to be On Purpose

I opened the local paper recently to a story about a local comic book artist, Brian Wingrove (here's his site!)

My post is not on this. It's more about the local paper in question. Now really, I have nothing but love for the publication. It's pretty informative, if small, but I still read it mornings at work and try to see what's going on in town. Even though the size has shrunk in the past years (like literally the paper is not as wide) I continue to be a reader.

But dang, they suck at proofreading. 

I think it has been getting better lately. Maybe. The writing's certainly improved, because they used to have one article writer who probably could have used a writing class. I haven't seen her name lately, but when her work appeared in the paper, a typical paraphrased quote looked like this.

"Mr. Smith said that his wife had said that her aunt said that the intruder had shown up around dinnertime."

And see, that's okay. Easy mistake, just takes a little work to correct.

It gets better.

There's also the section for letters to the editor, written of course by the community, on various topics. I will never forget the one that was printed a couple of years ago.

The letter was praising this medical facility for being so helpful and caring during a patient's last days. She'd had a terminal illness and the family was sincerely thanking the staff at this place.

According to the paper, the deceased was afflicted with lunch disease.

I must say, I have never heard of lunch disease.

Okay, you say. Typo. Sure. Someone was hungry when they typed that.

Now, Brian Wingrove's comic series is called "Intermezzo" and is a reference to the humorous content. This short article that appeared in the paper had a picture of Mr.Wingrove holding up a couple of copies of his comic, upon which is clearly printed "Intermezzo" across the top. In big letters. Yellow ones.

And sure enough, next to the picture in the paper, they talk about his Intermezza comic series.

That is not a thing.

I have therefore come to the conclusion that it's done on purpose, to add "charm" and "quirk" to the local paper.

I applied once for a proofreading position and was never called.

I like to think it's because my resume was too perfectly spelled.