The index, which sunk to a record low of 83 in March, stood at 85.8 in August 2007.

New York Times, today. That is the third time in a week I have seen that same error in the NYT. It seems you can't trust nothing nomore.

or outsourceing editing functions. They ain't high priced upper management for nothin'.

editorial staff.

I'm finding more and more errors in the Washington Post. This is why:

In early 2005, The Post had about 75 full-time copy editors. More than 30 have left the paper to take buyouts or new jobs. There are 43 today...

Philip Bennett, The Post's managing editor, said that copy editing remains "essential to our credibility, but as with many things in journalism, it needs to evolve with changes that are transforming our business. As we move from being a nightly assembly line to a 24-hour news operation, all editors will have to take on broader and overlapping responsibilities." Bennett also said that before recent cutbacks in the size of the newsroom, The Post had almost as many editors as reporters, and "it's vital to us to keep as many reporters as we can contributing original journalism, even if it means we have fewer editors."

It keeps going up, up, and away!

on (one of) perhaps the biggest single reason print media is dying (or going through a near-death experience) in this country. I'm going to miss having, and physically holding, a daily newwspaper. so it goes.

And in the "National Newspaper of Record" no less?

Tsk, tsk.

rampant -- wrt to singular/plural tenses -- even saw a bad example in the NY Times the other day. This might seem minor or unimportant to some, but I think it's a sign of carelessness and decay in the overall society.

Sad, actually.

O.T. to the judge, et en Anglais:

Thanks for the recent post, which I only saw days after you posted it. Very interesting, indeed! Or as your Governor might say, "you betcha!" Not going to ask what brought that on.

Tres amusant, bien sur.

Fingernails on a chalkboard to me!

I have learned to grit my teeth and tolerate the use of "they" or "their" as gender-neutral singular pronouns, but I refuse to use them that way myself.

Agree -- although it IS a mouthful -- or a keyboard-full -- to use "he, she or it," no? :-) I can't stand that use of 'they' but even worse to me, is how "they" ignore the prepositional phrase and link the verb tense to the last word in the adjacent phrase (when plural), rather than to the original word being modified by the phrase (often singular). For ex., a team (of followers) WERE chased down the race route by overly aggressive paparazzi. Or some such. "A team WERE" -- what is this, the UK?? Even the Times is slipping a bit on this one, now. I blame Microsoft's horrendously inadequate "Grammar & Spellcheck" myself. And, as above, lower staff levels dedicated to copy-editing and seemingly, any forms of editing!

Perhaps I'm just being incredibly dense, here (it COULD happen), but I don't see any obvious error. The index was higher in August 2007, sunk to a record low in March, and has subsequently increased from that low. The error is what, exactly?

Here I was looking for the factual error.

I was taught (decades ago) that "it" was a perfectly proper gender neutral pronoun, but apparently these days it is thought to be dehumanizing to use for people, so I suppose we are stuck with "they." The language does evolve, even if curmudgeons such as I disaprove. After all, nobody now objects to use of "you" as either singular or plural, although it originally was plural only.

As I said, I reluctantly accept that use, but the linking of the verb tense to the last word in the adjacent phrase is a pet peeve.

I do often follow the UK useage of treating collective nouns such as "team," "company," etc as plural -- a result of having spent 5 years writing policies for an internationl company which used the Financial Times standards.

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