A Tragedy of Errors

Dear Television Networks,

But, why?

I’m not an avid television watcher, not since telenovelas claimed the airwaves such that we the disinterested few are left with close to nothing to watch. But there are times I can’t evade watching TV, like when I’m forced to be a part of the family tradition of sitting in the living room and commenting on the politicians’ antics you tell us on the news. To be fair, you give me something new to be sad about, if only for a few minutes.

So is it wrong that I’d think you’d return the favour by at least making sure your news comes out flawless? Instead, what do I get for my troubles? Huge language errors. I understand it may not be a big at all deal to some of you—‘ooh, the people will overlook that, no one notices these things!’—, but personally, seeing spelling and grammar errors in a news package—or any package, in fact—is equivalent to being jabbed in the eye by a very small but very real jackknife. And even you’ll admit that that’s not exactly tolerable.

I’ll give you a few infamous ones you wrote yourselves:

‘Foundadtion.’ When I saw this, after I did a double-take, I thought: it’s got to be a process. My mind went to that machine in Richie Rich that was supposed to find Dad, so I figured someone had taken that seriously and come up with an agency or organization of sorts that specializes in just that—finding Dad. Found Dad Tion, the ‘tion’ short for Action, or Organization, or something. The joke was on me. Nice pun.

‘Habbit.’ Ooh. This one made me think of Gandalf. And Bilbo Baggins. Naturally. I figured you meant to say Hobbit, but got taken by the American pronunciation, and ‘Habbit’ happened instead.

‘Altinate.’ Apparently, not only were you giving us alternate solutions to whatever it is you were talking about then, you were also suggesting an alternate spelling to the word. You should be knighted.

‘Learn to drive at your own convenient.’ Ha. Like a convenient is a neat, private, little racecourse everyone owns, where we can learn to drive without worrying about impatient horn-honking drivers and traffic rules.  

‘Lively two bedroom house.’ Lively? What does the house do, wear a frilly skirt and a crop top, and wave pompoms while occasionally turning cartwheels and singing pop music?

‘Exchange any property of your for a of your choice.’ ???

There’s this other one I just cannot understand. It got me rather riled up, to be honest. I didn’t want to mention it, because it was on the sensitive issue of a missing person, but seriously, if you’re telling us to help locate him, HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU SAY HE IS 1.8 CENTIMETRES TALL? 1.8 centimetres. Centimetres! What is he, a munchkin? Even an oompa-loompa will shudder to think someone that height exists.

And there’s this other one I just cannot understand either. You misspelled the name of your own anchor. The anchor. She’s in the production room possibly all day. You joke with her. You argue with her. She’s your buddy and your rep. And she stands on set and you misspell her name. You get her Twitter handle right, but her name, what’s her name? What does it matter? Who cares?

Really?

I see why these things continue. They’re tiny errors the masses won’t see. But for annoying people like me, who have annoying, habits—ooh, habbits—like noticing the mistake before seeing everything else, it’s hard to ignore them. It’s hard to enjoy the news! I fear you’ve messed up my psyche; I can’t watch news anymore without eagerly skimming the banners scrolling under to see your latest error.

I’m not perfect. I’ve sat in an exam hall before and been held up a number of seconds debating the spelling of ‘disseminate’. But my errors affect only me (and possibly the examiner who marks my script, who may or may not collapse in a fit of laughter at how dumb one person could get). Your news—and errors—stretch for miles.

I get that sometimes it’s the pressure of having to provide a super within five seconds of the SOT, or newsroom excitement, or both, that gets you hitting keys at breakneck speed, coming up with wonders like ‘increses,’ ‘our lives revolves,’ ‘Black Satellites begins,’ ‘musical concert, ’ ‘govenment,’ ‘dinning hall,’ ‘persue,’ ‘authorieties,’ ‘voilence,’ ‘the search continuous,’ and ‘offers our cheerish viewers.’ But, think about it. The masses are watching you. The kids are watching you (because, like you report, they spend more time watching TV nowadays than learning). And they’ll write these things in exams. And fail. And you will report our falling standards in education.

But you’ll fail to see that it’s because you didn’t lay a good enough foundadtion for their English, providing dubious altinate spellings like you do. And, trust, they’ll very easily be learning to fail at their own convenient.

Consider getting more conscientious with what you put out. And while you’re at it, please learn how to pronounce ‘parallel.’ It’s got only one ‘r.’

Signed,

D

You know, I would sign, but I don’t want you misspelling my name if you report this.

*

Found this under my pillow when daytime insomnia drove me to clean out my room. I reckon it’s from the tooth fairy. She must not like human television very much.