Pay Attention-There Will Be A Test Later

Yesterday, glancing at the front page of a rather tiny and frankly kind of pathetic local newspaper, I saw a news story about phosphorus in lake sediment and runoff.

The problem? It called it "phosphorous."

Phosphorus is a chemical element. It is a noun.

Phosphorous is an adjective meaning "pertaining to or of phosphorus."

(This is not a nitpick at all. This is a pretty significant and central part of grammar. And spelling, too, I suppose.)

In this era of being able to instantly produce links to websites such as the above, or even more reputable sites than open source ones like the wiki derivative projects, there is no excuse for even the tiniest and poorest-staffed newspaper to make a mistake like that. If one isn't sure of the exact spelling of a word (or if it's a word one is less than perfectly familiar with) one should double-check with a quick Google search. If the author doesn't catch it, the editor ought to double-check.

If the editor doesn't catch it, people are going to berate you for it on the internet.

I don't get after people who make this kind of mistake on their personal websites. After all, such people aren't generally charging for content and they don't have any kind of editors or oversight. It's forgivable when a one-person operation goofs like that, especially on a project that they might devote less than an hour of their time a day to. But this mistake made it past multiple educations that ought to have been at least high school diploma level, and anyone with a high school education could have (I'm not saying would have, I'm saying "could have if they did their work and retained it"-I'm well aware not everyone with that level of education definitely absorbed that much) caught such an error.

Further, institutions like newspapers (and other print publishers) do play an important role in a modern society. Along with other media, print media forms the central part of one of the great pillars of modern society: Communications. (I'd go so far as to call it one of the big two or three pillars, for that matter.)

Sure, people will know what "phosphorous" was supposed to mean. Most people won't even notice it was an error. But even a small error should be acknowledged and have attention brought to it in this case. Ignored errors lead to ignorance. Ignorance leads to apathy.

Apathy leads to suffering stupidity.

Stupidity leads to suffering. (And I do mean that one.)

When communications break down, society will start to crumble. Please, stop the rot at the low levels (i.e. puny and rather lame local newspapers) rather than let it creep up.

(Obviously, education is important for this. Yeah, the other two of the big three pillars of modern society? Education and technology.)

-Signing off.

Art?

(Completely unrelated: Look! Look! I posted over there!)

From an advertisement on the back of the entertainment section of a local newspaper:

FREE Exhibition

Frank Stella:
Irregular Polygons
Opens... etc.

Frank Stella has been a consistent innovator at the forefront of abstract art. Though based on simple geometries, his Irregular Polygons series of 1965-66 comprises one of the most complex statements of his long career. Each of eleven monumental compositions combines varying numbers of shapes and colors, resulting in daringly asymmetric canvases that play with illusion.

I hate to say this (not really), but sticking a bunch of shapes together isn't really a complex statement. Look at this, and tell me that it's something more complex than a triangle sticking out of a not-exactly-a-square. What, it symbolizes suffering or some silliness like that? (And what's wrong with using, say, actual forms found in life for symbolism? I don't like people reading into every teeny tiny detail too much either, though, so... eh.)

I don't have a problem with modern art on general principle (in fact, I rather love futurism) but talking about abstract art as anything other than aesthetically pleasing shapes is just a bunch of pretentious bull. (I know I'm hardly the first person to voice that opinion, but whatever. It's not like I'm trying to make a statement, unlike some people.)

-Signing off.

Newspaper Headlines For the Ages

Check out the newspaper headline here (in today's page of my sister's comic, The Law of Purple).

In case you have a bit of trouble reading that for some reason: "Sasquatch Army Moves On France-France Mildly Astonished."

Sis is no doubt making a loose allusion to this website. It is also possible it was slightly inspired by Dateline: Silver Age, which showcases panels from comic books with newspaper headlines contained within; it's all her own sense of humor, though.

-Signing off.

Tweet, Tweet.

Today I'm going to talk about (quickly checks against old articles for the same subject) Twitter.

When I first heard of Twitter, I was totally neutral on it, mostly because I only heard of it in the vaguest sort of way. When I heard about the length limit, I rolled my eyes, because it sounded kind of dumb.

Then I thought about it some more, and realized that Twitter is for the terminally attention span-deprived. And I thought to myself, "Not for me."

It doesn't even have anything to do with the fact that it's for the cell phone crazy people who carry around cell phones and are constantly using them (I hate cell phones on general principle). It's just because, unlike a lot of people, I have an attention span, and "tweeting" sounds like it'd be annoying.

That, and anything with "twit" encapsulated in its name can't be good for your intellect.

But the real thing that makes me truly and deeply hate Twitter (at the moment) is that it's somehow so insanely popular (read "well-sponsored" or "made friends in the right circles") that on the news, which is usually horribly annoying on a good day, they mention Twitter every fifteen seconds and talk about how useful, awesome, and cool it is to use Twitter for this inane thing or that inane thing. There was even something on the local news about using Twitter to lose weight.

It figures something evil would come of something named after bird talk.

-Signing off.

Random Comments

I was looking at a local newspaper's "entertainment" section, and a regular feature caught my attention in two ways.

First, the feature, called "To the Nines," had "points" labeled 1-10. This, in and of itself, was obviously screwed up, and close examination revealed that there were nine items, but someone (or something, if there was an automated process) omitted the 7 in the count.

The other thing was not particularly direct, but a common sort of misconception implicit in the coverage. Criticizing President Bush is currently so popular it feels like it must be going out of style (I suppose it is, since he'll only be in office for a few more months), and this feature, species named after "celebrities," put him at the top because of the distinct honor he had received... having a slime mold beetle named after him.

A lot of people have had good laughs over this. I know for a fact that it must be so. But nothing could be more ironic about the laughs people are having... because the scientists who named the beetle (and many others) intended it as an actual honor because they admire Bush.

Now, I know this sounds implausible-not the honoring part, but the idea that there are Republican scientists-but it's true. And as further evidence that they did in fact intend it as an honor, by the way, are the other beetles which they named after Darth Vader and their wives. No joke.

Honor or not, there's a good chance they were in the doghouse for a few weeks after that.