I promise I'll write something more interesting than this for today's post, but I need a moment re: stuff happening at work.
I am not exactly a grammar and syntax queen when it comes to blogging, I totally admit that. Since I usually write as I think (and think in my speaking voice which is East Coast fast) I'll sometimes even type the wrong word in a post (e.g. "sail" instead of "sale" "right" instead of "write" homonyms - you get it).
I have been placed in charge of writing a cover letter for a manuscript we are about to submit to a scientific journal (for which grammar and syntax will be regarded with the utmost importance on my part!!). We have been waiting to submit this paper for four weeks because one of the potential co-authors has "comments and concerns" she's wanted to send.
She finally sends them today. As a statistician, I understand she is going to focus stats and everything she things we did wrong with the statistical analysis. That's fine. What's not so fine? The fact that all of her COMMENTS ARE IN CAPS WITH FRANTIC PUNCTUATION?!!?@?@?@?!???!?!?! And she loves to comment in fragment sentences that. Don't make a lot of sense. Because they are fragments. A lot of them.
It kind of makes me want to fling the paper against the back wall of my office. There's a lot of other drama going on with this person that I don't really want to (and probably shouldn't) write about here. It's amazing that she has the nerve to not only delay the submission by four weeks, but she also gives us nonconstructive (read: SH*T) comments. This person wasn't originally on our author list because she gave so little to this manuscript, but we extended the authorship invite for political reasons as well as out of pity. Just goes to show you were pity gets you. UGH.
Rant over! Back to working on this cover letter!
3 comments:
In my opinion, sentence fragments are only charming when someone like William Shatner or Christopher Walken use them.
As far as all caps go, they're OK for extreme emphasis, as in, "UGH - these comments are condescending!"
I tend to lean on exclamation points, I've noticed, so I do my best to tone them down. They still creep in, though. It's like I'm living in a comic strip, or something. Maybe it's 'cuz I'm a fairly upbeat person, and somehow want to convey that I am saying things in a lighthearted way.
I am guilty of !!!! too - I think it's what you said, you're upbeat, and since tone is so difficult to convey via email, !!! says "hey, this is no big deal! I am happy! I am lighthearted"
I guess what really went up my A** were the caps - they weren't written in a "OMG JUST FYI THIS IS KINDA WRONG" way, more like a "OMG Y R U SO DUUUUUMMMMBBBBBB" way.
Hee hee William Shatner
ugh not "a" I mean "an"
there goes my grammar. ha.
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