Over a late lunch today, I picked up a copy of the university's student magazine, Hype, and glanced through its pages.
Good Lord, someone get those people a copy editor!
I don't consider myself to be a grammar snob - I certainly make my share of gaffes and typos - but if the text is going to print, it should be proofread by multiple people! (I learned this the hard way in high school when a particularly fine issue of the magazine I edited and printed had no fewer than six typos in twenty pages. Ouch.) The Yale Daily News, for example, a paper staffed primarily by undergraduates, has its own dedicated copy staff, and while I certainly noticed the occasional slip-up in the YDN over the course of four years, no single issue contained as many errors as the few pages of Hype I read today. For crying out loud, Rumpus, which is admittedly a low-rent tabloid, makes fewer errors than did this issue of Hype!
Darlings, a few suggestions:
1) Its' is not the possessive form of it. There's no excuse for that one. I never want to see that again.
2) Unless it is part of a legitimate title, please refrain from repeatedly using & in the text of a feature article.
3) I admit that I'm a fan of the Oxford comma, but I can live without it as long as you're consistent about it! Switching styles in the magazine is bad enough, but switching styles in a given piece is ridiculous.
4) While this blog's font doesn't usually show it, allow me to import two forms of the apostrophe:
‘em
’em
The latter is the correct way to shorten them with an apostrophe. The former is typographical laziness. Kids, if you're at all competent with Word, you should know at least one way to make the apostrophe turn around.Have a little pride in your publication, Hype. Will someone on the editorial board kindly invest in a copy of The Elements of Style and, for extra credit, a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves? If you can't be bothered, well, I can think of at least one postgrad willing to give Hype a weekly once-over for a nominal fee.
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