Frank Ramblings

I think it, I blog it

This is going to seem stupid to many of you, but here goes anyway. When it comes to spelling and grammar, I have a pretty serious case of O.C.D. I'm not very forgiving of those errors, mostly because spelling and grammar come very naturally to me. I know if a sentence is grammatically correct or if a word is spelled properly just by reading or hearing it. It usually doesn't take very much effort on my part. That's why I was so surprised today when I read Green Lantern #45, written by the illustrious Geoff Johns, and ran across the following grammatical error from the mouth of Hal Jordan's on-again, off-again love interest Carol Ferris:

"Hal and I broke up more times then he's charged his ring."
Maybe some of you don't even see the error, but to me, "then" stands out like a sore thumb. So what's the point of all this? I mentioned it in passing during a conversation with my friend Faith, and the following dialogue came out of it. I thought it was funny, so upon her suggestion, I'm posting it here. (Forgive our grammatical laziness, specifically the lack of capitalization. This was just a private instant message conversation.)

Me: I saw a spelling/grammar error in a comic today
Faith: no way!
Me: yeah. my previously unwavering faith in geoff johns was shaken.
Faith: oh no!
Me: it'll take some time but I think we can patch things up
Faith: so sad
Faith: I know you two will make it work out
Faith: you're made for each other
Me: I hope you're right
Me: things have been so great until now
Me: I don't want it to end so suddenly
Faith: it's the first stutter in your relationship, give it time, things will go back to normal
Me: just because he used "then" when he clearly meant "than"
Faith: oh, that's not as bad as I thought
Faith: it's just one bad issue. It'll go back to normal next time
Me: that shouldn't get past the proofreader!!
Faith: see, that's not him
Faith: that's an external force
Me: but he wrote it in the first place!
Faith: honey, you're arguing semantics in a one time situation
Faith: everyone slips up a bit
Me: this is sounding too much like a real almost-break-up so I'm going to stop before I seriously frighten myself

1 comments:

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