nobody’s prefect
Posted By Sherry on June 20, 2007
Last Saturday I found a copy of The Glass Castle at a garage sale for 25 cents, so I bought it even though Amazon had already shipped our two new copies. They arrived yesterday, just as I was finishing the final pages. Such is life.
The book reminded me a lot of Angela’s Ashes. It’s a tribute to the human spirit and a close-up view of how warped some brilliant minds can become. It was refreshingly well edited with the exception of regular misuse of bring/brought (when it should have been take/took, unless someone changed the rule, which happens). I would have edited this sentence: “…I worked up enough nerve to make my way around the entire length of the pool.” But I’m not in a position to critique others’ proofreading. Last Sunday’s worship folder (a.k.a. bulletin) got printed with the words whiter than show.
People find me a bit finicky about language. I wonder exactly how you would have edited that sentence? To me, I see “around” and “length” to be incongruous. The “length” of something is only one dimensional and has no perimeter to go “around.” To go around something, it must have at least two dimensions.
That’s how it struck me…and the reason I would have edited it. First I’d have to ask the writer which one she meant, the circumference or the length.
I’m so glad Alan has someone to play word games with, especially when some of the words strike me as “math-like.” Dimensional, perimeter, length… ick.
I’ve been known to have perfectionist tendencies. Sometimes Alan and I agree and it’s marital bliss…at other times what bothers him is of no merit to me, and vice versa. In those moments, I know exactly where Brynn got her knack for eye rolling.