Proofreading Woes
I have two daughters. Elizabeth, my oldest, you met when she graduated in May. The youngest, Cecilia, is 16 years old. I have not mentioned her before, but I used her photo back in April when I wrote about fixing images in newsletters.
I was out of town over the weekend and sometime after my phone died, she sent this text. I could not see the image, and it did not seem like something she would write, so I assumed it was my phone messing up again.
When I arrived back home, I asked, “Did you send me this message?”
She said, “Well, yeah.”
“I can’t see the image. What are you talking about?” I asked her.
Cecilia replied, “I had never read Books & Whatnot before, so I decided to check it out. I sent you a screenshot where you wrote your when you meant to write you’re.”
Then the conversation turned rapid-fire.
“You have never read Books & Whatnot before?”
“No.”
“And you decided to troll for my mistakes?”
“I only read a couple of things.”
“And you found mistakes in both?”
“Yeah.”
“… ”
“…”
“Well, my SpeakIt proofreader will not catch your and you’re. I guess I should start writing without contractions.”
“I thought that was common practice.”
Meet Cecilia, my new proofreader until she is no longer grounded. And if you commonly interchange your and you’re (even though you know the difference), try writing without contractions. You might feel like you are Pauls Toutonghi writing Red Weather at first. But you can always go back and insert them if you want a more casual voice.
