When proofreaders go missing: a blog of errors, designed to demonstrate why sub-editors and copy editors remain important, at a time when they are increasingly regarded as optional extras (all contributions welcome; to follow on Twitter - zmkc)
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Oo
I wonder if I am missing a very clever play on words here. It seems to me that the 'too' in this headline to a letter in the London Review of Books ought to be a 'to':
Interesting. In an annoying sort of a way. Like you, I suspect, I'm trying to parse this using the assumption that this spelling was intentional. OK, 'too' is an adverb that modifies an adlective; 'leak' as an adjective is presumably derived from either 1) 'leak' the noun or 2) 'leak' the verb. Ok, now I'm winging it. 1: adjectives derived from nouns usually mmodify oher nouns - e.g. he's a real 'party' animal - which is not the case here. 2: adjectives derived from verbs generally require an inflection - e.g. 'leaked' or 'leaking'. Nope. The writer is clearly Borat.
The trouble is, Borat seems to get around so much these days - perhaps he has set up a free-lance copy editing service for all the world's newspapers and magazines.
Interesting. In an annoying sort of a way. Like you, I suspect, I'm trying to parse this using the assumption that this spelling was intentional. OK, 'too' is an adverb that modifies an adlective; 'leak' as an adjective is presumably derived from either 1) 'leak' the noun or 2) 'leak' the verb. Ok, now I'm winging it. 1: adjectives derived from nouns usually mmodify oher nouns - e.g. he's a real 'party' animal - which is not the case here. 2: adjectives derived from verbs generally require an inflection - e.g. 'leaked' or 'leaking'. Nope. The writer is clearly Borat.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, Borat seems to get around so much these days - perhaps he has set up a free-lance copy editing service for all the world's newspapers and magazines.
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