I could have done that kind of editing once, but then livejournal came along. ^^ Every now and then I'll come across some comment I made way back when and I'll just stare at it, amazed at the number of trifling grammatical details I used to point out. These days those same mistakes are invisible.
Tilling at windmills! XD No wait, here's a better one: in the wilds of The Internet, there is a small well-tended garden. The flowers in the middle grow beautifully, only needing a slight trim now and then. But editors are forever fighting back the weeds on the periphery.
1. It's tilting, not tilling. 2. That metaphor would work better if I said that out in the wilds, it rains (acid rain!), while here in the garden, the sun always shines.
Haha, yes, my grammar has also gone to hell these days. (BTW, is syntax separate from grammar? I forget from my linguistics classes.) I actually blame chatting. Also Japanese study, which has messed with my brain. >_<
I dunno, the furthest I got in formal language instruction was tenth grade English. No, wait! It was fourth-semester French. (It's odd to hear you say that Japanese has weakened your grammar, when foreign-language study is the way most of the people I know learned the few rules we do know. But I guess Japanese is just Special like that.) If I could re-do college, I would definitely find the time for an intro-level linguistics course and at least one intro-level macroeconomics course.
I mean, it has improved my knowledge of grammatical terms, but knowing theory is different from practice. What I mean is that my reading lots of Japanese text (well, not lots by the standards of English text reading; by those standards I've read hardly anything, and also it's not really study because all I've been doing is reading, not trying to memorize vocab and half skipping over things I cannot parse grammatically) has made my brain half swim recently.
Continual acute need! You can set whatever conditions you want in your signup comment, if they cry it's their own fault. XD (No one's wibbled or been hostile at me to date, though, even when I tear up the grammar or ask for extensive rewrites - which honestly I find surprising. I guess because I'm the kind of asshole who disregards other people's advice so I always assume no one will take mine. But it's all been very orderly and workshoppish thus far. XD)
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Date: 2007-04-24 10:56 pm (UTC)My pruning sheers are rusty.
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Date: 2007-04-24 10:59 pm (UTC)2. That metaphor would work better if I said that out in the wilds, it rains (acid rain!), while here in the garden, the sun always shines.
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