neatness counts

I am nitpicky about writing. No secret there. No, I don’t nitpick friends’ e-mails—I’m just happy to receive them. And I don’t get worked up about bad writing by nonprofessionals. Not everyone can write and not everyone wants to. We all have different skills and that’s fine.

But I feel justified in getting snotty about people who are paid to write. I don’t understand how any professional writer can write the overused, dust-farting “welcome to” lede—which I see at least once a week in the Dallas Morning News—without shriveling with shame. C’mon. You’re holding one of the few remaining paid journalism jobs in the nation and that’s the best you can do?

God help me, I’m turning into my nemesis, Paula LaRoque, whom I will loathe forever. But Mondays are hard enough without facing aggravation in my morning paper.

I’ll give Mario Tarradell a teeny weeny pass, since he had to write fast to get a review of Dolly Parton’s show last night in today’s paper. But the writing was so sloppy, I slumped into my coffee. Where are the editors? I know, I know. Everyone in the newspaper is overworked. But newspapers aren’t doing anything about their own sorry state by ignoring quality.

So, what annoyed me so? You’re dying to know, I’m sure.

First: The country icon and pop-culture giant always puts on a good show, no matter how many times you’ve seen her before.

Hm. What do “you” have to do with the fact that Dolly puts on a good show? Does he mean that no matter how many times you’ve seen Dolly, her shows are still fun?

Sloppy.

And, the story continues, Dolly sounded splendid, looked fabulous and seemed incredibly personable.

Seemed personable? Was she personable or not? Was it some kind of weird sleight-of-personality trick?

Furthermore , it’s easy to take Dolly for granted: She’s been around so long and has pretty consistently charmed us with her musical talent, her down-home wit and that signature image often copied but never duplicated.

Again, pretty consistently? Is this hedging, in case a reader writes in and points out the time Dolly was less than charming? Is this the allegedly of criticism?

And, to really pick a nit, I’ve never seen anyone try to copy Dolly’s signature image, have you? Show me.

And on it goes. Mario urges us to pick up a copy of her great new CD, and you can hear how this legend continues to polish off more gems.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong (fair is fair), but when we say we polish off something, doesn’t it mean we finish it? Tom and I have just about polished off the coffee cake I baked Saturday morning. The phrase doesn’t make sense in this context. Perhaps he meant to say she polished some gems? Maybe I’m wrong…

Yeah, OK, I’m turning into one of those annoying old farts I used to hear from when I worked at the paper, the ones who wrote a snippy letter every time I misplaced a comma in a story. But this kind of stuff just irks the crap outta me. And it is Monday, after all.