LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  While reading the article “The people at the center of the war” by Parin Behrooz in The New York Times (April 10), I came across a sentence that contains two very small slips—of the sort that occasionally appear in even the best-edited publications. The sentence reads: “That war began with explicit encouragement for Iranians to rise up and ended with U.S. threats to bomb the country back to the ‘Stone Ages’ has not been lost on the people living through it.” Two details may be noted in passing. First, the familiar English expression is “the Stone Age,” not “the Stone Ages.” Second, the grammatical subject of the sentence is the compound statement introduced by that (“that war began … and ended …”), which would normally take a plural verb: have not been lost rather than has not been lost. These are, of course, minor points that do not affect the sense of the passage. They simply remind us how demanding careful copy-editing can be. Readers of a certain generation may recall a...

Sometimes Homer nods. A veces dormita Homero.  The expression is as old as Western literature itself, and as forgiving as it is wise. It reminds us that even the greatest minds, the most consummate craftsmen, are not immune to error. The best scribe may blot his page; the finest swordsman may fall to a single thrust. “Yes, I made a mistake,” one might say, “but remember that sometimes Homer nods.”      The phrase dates back to Horace ( quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus ) and has long been used to underscore a simple, humane truth: genius does not confer infallibility. Talent, however towering, remains human.      A modern illustration of this idea can be found in an article published more than a quarter of a century ago by B. C. Goodpasture, the long-standing editor of the Gospel Advocate . Significantly titled Homer Sometimes Nods , the piece stresses that all human authors—regardless of their brilliance or experience—will occasionally “nod” or “s...

  The Web is full of well-meaning advisers who hand out quick tips on "writing well."  Trouble is, most of them stick to scolding people about the same tired mistakes: mixing up  there and they're  , it's and its , and so on, under the rubric of "common mistakes." The Spanish language also has language gurus who also correct "common mistakes" like don´t write "a ver" for "haber", "ayer bailemos" for "ayer bailamos", and the like. They are scratching the surface because getting into the brass tacks requires knowledge and experience. Seldom do they dwell on the use of the subjunctive in both languages, or the right position of adverbs, or the proper use of the progressive form, or the "perífrasis durativa." They want to replace hard work and study with the quick-fix band-aid of their directives. “If you’re serious about writing well, skip the shortcuts—dig into the hard parts, sweat through them, an...

  I have a knack for spotting other people's errors and faux pas. Unfortunately, I am not nearly as sharp when it comes to recognizing my own, despite having earned a reputation as a nitpicker and fault-finder. This trait has won me more than a few enemies, although my intentions are good - I simply wish to help. What I have noticed, however, is that those at the receiving end of my corrections rarely admit to mistakes. Instead, they hide behind the convenient excuse of a "typo." My Random House Webster's Dictionary defines a typographical error as "an error in printed or typewritten matter resulting from striking the improper key of a keyboard, from mechanical failure, or the like." Yet somehow, when someone writes that Napoleon was born in France instead of Corsica, it’s waved off as a "typo." If a writer uses then for than , it was clearly a typo. Their for there ? Again, a typo. It seems typo now covers everything from slip-ups to sheer ...

It has accurred to me that you might think I am petty and that I focus on language trivia when I point out the errors, typos, or faux pas of writers of prestige. But I have a grudge, an ax to grind, against the English-speaking intelligetnsia. They are uppity, stubborn, ivory-towered and believe themselves to be tops... but they are not. Most hold on to the stupid assumption that being a native is enough. I like Dr. Irvin Yalom ´s The Schopenhauer Cure . He knows how to spin a good yarn. He has good dictionaries of synonyms which he uses constantly. He enthralls me with his pedantry. In short: I like him. But why on earth would he write "Schopenhauer said that a highly attractive women..."? In his Acknowledgments he mentions many people who read the trypescript of his novel and offered suggestions, corrections and the like. But nobody read this line: "Schopenhauer said that a highly attractive women..."? The Publisher, HarperCollins, probably has no proofr...