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Fun Stuff Part of the fun of being a proofreader/editor is seeing some writing that is so good it's worth remembering. And part of the fun is seeing some writing that is so bad it's worth sharing! Following are some of my favorites. If you have some to share, I'd be glad to add them to the page. Just e-mail them to me. You're free to copy and use any of the below material without special permission. Just enjoy -- and think of Proof-It.com for all your proofreading and editing needs. ———————————————	——————————————
RULES OF WRITING -- Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects. -- Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. -- And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. -- It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. -- Avoid clichés like the plague. -- Also, always avoid annoying alliteration. -- Be more or less specific. -- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary. -- Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies. -- No sentence fragments. -- Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used. -- Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. -- Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. -- One should NEVER generalize. -- Comparisons are as bad as clichés. -- Don't use no double negatives. -- Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. -- One-word sentences? Eliminate. -- Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. -- The passive voice is to be ignored. -- Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas. -- Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice. -- Kill all exclamation points!!! -- Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them. -- Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas. -- Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed. -- Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -- If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly. -- Puns are for children, not groan readers. -- Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. -- Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. -- Who needs rhetorical questions? -- Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. And finally... -- Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. ———————————————— MODERN VERSIONS OF CAESAR'S MESSAGE TO THE ROMAN SENATE: "Veni, vidi, vici . . . I came, I saw, I conquered." Veni, vidi, Velcro… I came, I saw, I stuck around Veni, vidi, vino… I came, I saw, I got sloshed Veni, vidi, visa… I came, I saw, I overdrew Veni, vidi, Viagra… I came, I saw, I rose Veni, vidi, vodka… I came, I saw, I saw double Veni, vidi, vexi… I came, I saw, I annoyed Veni, vidi, volley… I came, I saw, I blew it all Veni, vidi, vinyl… I came, I saw, I sided the house Veni, vidi, vichyssoise… I came, I saw, I couldn't spell it Veni, vidi, Volvo… I came, I saw, I felt safer Veni, vidi, veggie… I came, I saw, I had a salad Veni, vidi, vamoose… I came, I saw, I left Dodge Veni, vidi, Vioxx… I came, I saw, I sued Veni, vidi, valium… I came, I saw, I chilled Veni, vidi, viola… I came, I saw, I fiddled Veni, vidi, Verdi… I came, I saw, Aida ———————————————— SELEKTED RITING WRULES 1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects. 2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. 3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. 4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. 5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat) 6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration. 7. Be more or less specific. 8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary. 9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies. 10. No sentence fragments. 11. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used. 12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous. 14. One should NEVER generalize. 15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches. 16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 17. One-word sentences? Eliminate. 18. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. 19. The passive voice is to be ignored. 20. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas. 21. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice. 22. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them. 23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas. 24. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." 25. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly. 26. Puns are for children, not groan readers. 27. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. 28. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. 29. Who needs rhetorical questions? 30. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. 31. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. ————————————— NEWSPAPERS AND THEIR READERS 1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. 2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country. 3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country. 4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts. 5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it. 6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country. 7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train. 8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated. 9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats. 10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores. 11. The Erie Daily Times is read by people who don't really know or care who's running the country...as long as the crossword puzzles and obituaries are always on the same page and Beetle Bailey is on the comics page. 12. The Annapolis Capital is read by people seeking escape from the Washington Post. ————————————— ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD Here are some signs and notices written in English that were discovered throughout the world. In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbidden to steal hotel towels please. If you are not a person to do such thing is please not to read notice. In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable. In a Leipzig elevator: Do not enter the lift backwards, and only when lit up. In a Belgrade hotel elevator: To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order. In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk. In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily. In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid. In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid. In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday. In an Austrian hotel catering to skiers: Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension. On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for. On the menu of a Polish hotel: Salad a firm's own make; limpid red beet soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people's fashion. Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs. In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your trousers here for best results. Outside a Paris dress shop: Dresses for street walking. ————————————— Analogies and metaphors that (we were told, and choose to believe,) were found in actual high school essays Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a thigh master. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. She was as easy as the TV guide crossword. He spoke with wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. The Ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. She grew on him like E. coli and he was room temperature Canadian beef. She had a deep throaty genuine laugh like that sound a dog makes just before he throws up. Even in his last years, grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. Her vocabulary was as bad, as, like, whatever. He was a tall as a six foot three inch tree. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge free ATM. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7 pm instead of 7:30. Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. The hailstones leaped up off the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. Long separated by cruel fate, the star crossed lovers raced across a grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, on having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resemble Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the east river. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. Young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a really duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a landmine or something. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids with power tools. He was deeply in love and when she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. Her voice had that tense grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightening. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall. ————————————————	THE ART OF INSULTS "I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill "A modest little person, with much to be modest about." - Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway) "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" - Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner) "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know." - Abraham Lincoln "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx "They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge." - Thomas Brackett Reed "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man {or woman} who wrote it.- Tennessee Williams "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in reply "Interpreter! Interpreter! How do you say the opposite of Vive Le France?" - Winston Churchill, on Charles de Gaulle "A sheep in sheep's clothing." - Winston Churchill, on Clement Atlee "There but for the grace of God, goes God." - Winston Churchill, on Stafford Cripps "He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill, on Stanley Baldwin ———————————— FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY LANGUAGE (Or severe distortions thereof) Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine. A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking. Dijon vu - the same mustard as before. Practice safe eating - always use condiments. Shotgun wedding: A case of wife or death. A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy. A hangover is the wrath of grapes. Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play. Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion. Reading while sunbathing makes you well red. When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I. A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired. Definition of a will: A dead give away. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes. She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion. If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed. With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress. When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it. Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under. Every calendar's days are numbered. A lot of money is tainted - It taint yours and it taint mine. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat. A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end. Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses. Acupuncture is a jab well done. ———————————— REASONS WHY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS SO HARD TO LEARN 1. The bandage was wound around the wound. 2. The farm was used to produce produce. 3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 4. We must polish the Polish furniture. 5. He could lead if he would get the lead out. 6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present. 8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 10. I did not object to the object. 11. The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 12. There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. 13. They were too close to the door to close it. 14. The buck does funny things when the does are present. 15. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into the sewer. 16. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 17. The wind was too strong to wind the sail. 18. After a number of injections my jaw got number. 19. Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear. 20. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. 21. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend? ————————————— 'tis what it's all about… The following is from the Washington Post Style Invitational contest that asked readers to submit "instructions" for something (anything), but written in the style of a famous person. The winning entry was The Hokey Pokey, as it may have been written by W. Shakespeare. O proud left foot, that ventures quick within Then soon upon a backward journey lithe. Anon, once more the gesture, then begin: Command sinistral pedestal to writhe. Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke, A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl. To spin! A wilde release from Heavens yoke. Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl. The Hoke, the poke — banish now thy doubt Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about. — by William Shakespeare (Jeff Brechlin, Potomac Falls) ————————————— Vocabulary Builders AQUADEXTROUS: Possessing the ability to turn the bathtub faucet on and off with your toe. CARPERPETUATION: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string or a piece of lint at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. DISCONFLECT: To sterilize the piece of candy you dropped on the floor by blowing on it, assuming this will somehow remove all the germs. ELBONICS: The actions of two people maneuvering for one armrest in a move theater. FRUST: The small line of debris that refuses to be swept onto the dustpan and keeps backing a person across the room until he finally decides to give up and sweep it under the rug. LACTOMANGUATION: Manhandling the "Open Here" spout on a milk container so badly that one has to resort to the "illegal" side. PEPPERIER: The waiter at a fancy restaurant whose sole job seems to be walking around asking diners if they want ground pepper. PHONESIA: The affliction of dialing a phone number and forgetting whom your were calling just as they answer. PUPKUS: The moist residue left on a window after a dog presses its nose to it. TELECRASTINATION: The act of always letting the phone ring at least twice before you pick it up, even when you're only six inches away. ————————————— An Insightful Writer "I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add." Gore Vidal ————————————— Ode to the Spell Checker Eye halve a spilling check her It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait aweigh. As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error rite Its rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My checker tolled me sew. Arthur On Gnome —————————————
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