typographical idiocy in music press

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the new Ryan Adams LP is called ROCK N ROLL, you twits!

and the word "THE" is never capitalized unless it's at the beginning of a sentence or title!!!

I will burn you all down!

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:30 (twenty-two years ago)

and there's no dot in the name of India Arie, except the ones over the lower case Is.

and unless you're e.e. cummings or k.d. lang, your name gets capital letters.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:35 (twenty-two years ago)

More Pedantry:

Dear Rob Fitzpatrick of the NME, "Gallic" is an adjective meaning "French". "Hellenic" would be appropiate choice when writing about the famously Greek Vangelis. And in your feature on Jane's Addiction this summer, you described them as being an antidote to grunge. Umm.. "Ritual...", their last album for twelve years came out in 1990, a whole year before "Nevermind" (which kicked grunge overground.) Music writers should know these things. Even those employed by the NME.

― Ben Dot (1977), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

What has kd been upto?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Outkast is not "a band."

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

(we're beyond mere typographical idiocy now)

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

one common typographical mistake is seeing a hyphen where an em dash should be - like in this instance (—). unfortunately pc's sometimes have a hard time translating the character so on the web doing this is acceptable. but in print you should really use hyphens, em dashes + en dashes appropriately.

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

In magazines like Time and Newsweek, song titles are italicized, not surrounded by quotes as they are in music magazines. This has always gotten under my skin.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

and there's no dot in the name of India Arie, except the ones over the lower case Is.

Well, different publications have different policies on these things... but yeah, it irks me when magazines/papers honor "quirky" capitalization in artist names and album titles ("matchbox twenty," "limpbizkit"). Gimme a break, y'know?

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

i think they should honour those things. even *rolleyes*, "limpbizkit"¡

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

you are wrong, sir.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

also, what is "proto-acoustic"?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:56 (twenty-two years ago)

x-post
so if i had a band called, umm, "huckYa-B-aL00zaH¡" you would prefer a mag. to spell it "Huckya-B-Aloozah!" no matter how much, as the genius behind the band, i insisted on having it spelt in the original manner¿

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

we should set up an organization like the Gideons, but instead of making sure there's a bible in every hotel room, we'll make sure there's a dictionary in every hack's desk.
We'll call ourselves the Proto-Gideons, just for laughs.

xpost

I might keep the ¡, since that could be an ethnic thing, and I wouldn't want to offend.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

would you correct the slang too, from "huckYa-B-aL00zaH¡" = "Huck You Be a Looser¡"¿
+ then correct the grammer = "Huck, You Are a Looser¡"¿

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

and the spelling "LOSER"

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:04 (twenty-two years ago)

and eventually, the intent: "Huck, You Are Awesome and Good-Looking"

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:05 (twenty-two years ago)

haha that was next¡ you beat me to it¡

― dyson (dyson), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

apparently, minds think alike.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:10 (twenty-two years ago)

also drives me crazy: unwarranted hyperbole

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

does it drive you mad?

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:35 (twenty-two years ago)

(i actually got pissed at my roommate for responding snarkily to an IM message from me - I said, "it's amazing how some publications [make a certain error]," and he was like, "it's amazing how some people use words like 'amazing' so recklessly." but that was because it was just IM; I can see how that's not useful in actual print

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:37 (twenty-two years ago)

unwarranted hyperbole does indeed induce me to crazy ranting.
"Can you believe this shit? Why do they let this goon get away with this shit? At least we agree this is shit, right?"

a certain someone who more or less replaced me recently wrote that a certain band with the number one-eight-two at the end of their name "singlehandedly" brought punkrock into the mainstream!!!
I spent about three hours tearing my hair out and worrying my friends.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

the error I had been talking about, by the way, was misusing "comprises" (which really shouldn't be used so often, if at all, anyway, as a fancy way of saying who the band members are - but if you're gonna use it, use it right!)

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

It also bothers me when bands/musicians are casually referred to as "legends"/"legendary." That status, if it can even be said to apply to pop musicians of any stripe, should be very hard to earn.

― Sam J. (samjeff), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

or how about calling an opinion you and you alone have written about "a well-documented fact" three months later?

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean, if the so-and-sos I'm talking about had any visible senses of humour, I'd think they were very clever, but they don't. So they're stupid.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't give a damn what the press writes about, I just wish that they'd do it well. Crap writing is nothing but laziness.

― Ben Dot (1977), Wednesday, 31 December 2003 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

sometimes crap writing requires a great deal more effort than "good" writing.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 2 January 2004 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Sticking to the typographical:

TS: Outkast vs. OutKast?

I feel like the latter is more correct, but the former is used so fucking often I wonder if I should bother.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 2 January 2004 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

and unless you're e.e. cummings or k.d. lang, your name gets capital letters.

And this isn't even true. According to this site, lowercasing Cummings' name was started by book publishers, not Cummings himself.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 2 January 2004 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

It also bothers me when bands/musicians are casually referred to as "legends"/"legendary."

I saw a clip on some entertainment television show where they said "Nicole Ritchie, daughter of legendary singer Lionel Ritchie..."

― mike h. (mike h.), Friday, 2 January 2004 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey, the man wrote "Easy"

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Friday, 2 January 2004 18:17 (twenty-two years ago)

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