Thursday, July 9, 2009

Overlooking the Obvious: Real-Life Examples of Bad Writing No. 5

"More spelling errors plague Obama releases," reads a July 9 headline at The Hill. The article (by Michael O'Brien) goes on to provide examples of misspellings contained in recent government press releases:

The General Services Administration (what is that, by the way?) comes in for the most censure. In what's described as an "official document to reporters," the GSA misspelled the president's first name ("Barak"). The next day, it sent the press an e-mail whose subject line read "Recvoery.gov Version 2.0 $18 Million Contract Awarded."

But the White House itself has gotten in on the act, e-writing of a meeting between President Obama and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown that "[t]he Prime Minister wlecomed the President's plans for a nuclear security conference in 2010."

On the one hand, these errors are clearly nothing more than typos. We all commit them.

On the other, one expects (perhaps foolishly, given the manifest cluelessness of many elected officials) the statements issued by the government to be proofread if not well written.

Whether such carelessness embodies the "small stuff" that the inspirational posters tell us not to "sweat" or a pervasive inattention to larger detail remains to be seen.

(For the entire article, visit http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/07/09/more-spelling-errors-plague-obama-releases/ and scroll down.)

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