Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Sunday, May 18, 2008 )

Even though I am a part-time professional copy editor by day, sometimes I, the doctor, forget to heal myself when it comes to my own copy. I apologize for what are some common mistakes in “Beauty Is Imperfection” blogs. You might recognize them:

–*Using “American” for “America,” as in “American needs a new president.”

–*Forgetting to remove an extra “the” or “a,” as in “we need a the new president.”

–*Leaving in a dangling participle, as in “Needing a new president, Barack Obama was elected.”

–*Leaving in a dangling gerund, as in “after winning World War II, lots of fucking was done, resulting in war criminal George W. Bush, who needs to be replaced by a new president.”

–*Writing a sentence with a lack of subject-verb agreement, as in “everyone have to vote against the Republicans and send George W. Bush to the Hague for war crimes.”

–*Writing a sentence without parallel structure that uses an improper reflexive, such as “George Bush should be in jail for the illegal invasion of Iraq, he tortured the prisoners, and having spied on ourselves.”

–*Using misplaced modifiers: “George Bush stood firm on his commitment to stay in Iraq after his daughter Jenna’s wedding.”

–*Writing dangling infinitives: “To make sure his wild child daughter Jenna Bush’s wedding was not an anarchic circus, a focal point for an anti-war, anti-Republican backlash by middle Americans against what is seen as a callous, uncaring elite, media coverage was severely restricted.”

There are probably even some copy errors in this column. Throw me in Guantanamo, why don’t you?