Ok, I admit it. The Grammar Cop has decided to take the day off. Easter holiday, you know. She just told me about it now! However…

She did have a chance to spot one little lonesome error this week. Now, captions are absolutely notorious for being loaded with mistakes. The reason for this is simple – well, apart from the fact that newspapers (and media in general) seem to stint on proofreading expenses. That is, they don’t have any. The reason is that many captions or cutlines as they’re often called are simply tossed into the mix, often at the last minute, by the graphic artist.

Now, artists are really good at art. Not so much at writing. Oh, there are exceptions to be sure, but… this has been my experience, and I’ve worked at many magazines large and small. (Large: EnRoute, LouLou. Small: Home Builder.)

So as I was saying. Just in a very quick perusal of our little weekly (no, not The Suburban – haven’t read that yet!) called the Free Press, I noticed: “His former council seat is being contest by *** **** … etc.”

What happened to the past tense verb ending of -ed? My guess – the artist left it off. Now true, this is more like a typo, which the Grammar Cop always avers is beneath her notice, but, well, not today it wasn’t! Let’s get some proofreading done, media people! Arghh!

More next week – when I recover. 😉