So, the other day, a certain teenaged friend of mine watched me pick up a book at his house and read the back cover of it. He immediately suggested that I take it home with me and read it myself, since he was done with it anyway. Its not a novel, it doesn't have anything to do with zombies - actually, its a 30 day devotional.
I don't usually do the devotional thing. Over the years I have developed a strange and cynical view of curriculum: Sunday School curriculum, Youth group curriculum, bible study curriculum... devotionals which claim to 'turn your life around it 30 days or your money back' tend to fall into this category. I guess... I don't know... I've sort of discovered this feeling that there is a fine line between drilling faith into a person with rules and lessons and structure, and allowing faith to grow naturally through relationship and self discovery, and, I generally don't like the drilling part. Anyway... I'm rambling.
What was my point? Oh, right. I took the devotional home with me. I thought, hey, if this teenaged kid thinks I should read this book, then I can give it a shot - its not going to hurt me. (Actually, I think what he really wanted was for me to write all my deep emotional secrets in it so that when I give it back to him, he'll have something entertaining to read!)
Its not an awful book. One page of devotion for each day, followed by a few life application questions and some room to journal if you so choose (I choose not). Its pretty surface level stuff - nothing too deep. Definitely meant for the teenie-bopper audience.
And then - It happened... Right there at the bottom of the page the author used the word 'than' instead of 'then'. Ironically enough, this was the page in which he explained that he had graduated from journalizm college and works for a magazine.
I pretty much put the book down right then and haven't opened it since. I.... I can't focus on the thoughts and ideas of the book while I'm looking for more glaring grammar errors! I just can't do it. And I can't turn my brain off either, it just does it, always looking for those mistakes. Its not the genre of material that's the problem either, I'm constantly catching myself looking for mistakes. As far as published material goes, newspapers are the worst. And then there's facebook - the unruly pit of all things grammatically incorrect. Your and you're, to and too, where and were, ugh... it just doesn't end.
Admittedly, I often interchange 'its' and 'it's' myself - nobody's perfect after all. Facebook, msn, emails, I can deal with; but in published print, stuff we pay money for, that shouldn't happen.
everything is different, everything is the same
2 years ago
I do that same thing. That's the reason I've taken a break from reading the newspaper. Way too many screw ups in it. I am terrible with my writing online though.
ReplyDeleteSo I had an idea for a blog that should prove to you once and for all I'm insane(not really, well... maybe).
I'll have it out sometime tonight probably. :)
James is going to be so disapointed that he doesn't get to read all of your inner most secrets.
ReplyDeleteI think those things are what you make them. I read Facing your Giants (I think by MAx Lacado) and I decided I would use it to look at David's life, not the self help book that it oculd be. I learned a lot about my self through it, but didn't really "face my giant" in the self help book sort of way (which it definetly is not)
ReplyDelete