Did the editor miss this? O'Malley CNN Op-Ed

[texas_ex2000]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/14/opinions/omalley-guns-nra/index.html

Without such protections, it will remain far too easy for criminals to legally buy guns.

If this were English class, that would get the big fat red pen markup.

 

[Horn6721]

O'Malley also missed that so far IIRC there has been no private LEGAL purchaser of guns go on a rampage.
He does not address how any of his proposals would have stopped any of the mentally ill people who legally bought guns.
and this is priceless
from CNN LINK
"By adjusting federal procurement policies, the federal government can encourage both gun manufacturers and dealers to prevent trafficking and violence, while spurring innovations that improve gun safety. This means requiring agencies to purchase only cutting-edge guns, such as those that have hidden serial numbers that cannot be defaced."

Does this mean O'Malley would go after the government FINALLY for Fast and Furious?

 

[texas_ex2000]

I think he means the Government won't buy guns from Colt if they don't bend at the knee to O'Malley's idea of gun safety and control technology. Such as no civilian production of semi-automatic rifles, magazines with 5+ rounds, no rifles with collapsible stocks, etc.

 

[NJlonghorn]

Without such protections, it will remain far too easy for criminals to legally buy guns.

If this were English class, that would get the big fat red pen markup.

Criticizing O'Malley for grammar errors would be silly even if he made a grammar error. But the sentence you quote is perfect. The modifier isn't misplaced, every word is spelled correctly, and usage is proper. You can't possibly be referring to the split infinitive, which most grammarians say (1) is acceptable in standard, modern English and (b) was never really wrong in the first place.

The only mistakes I see are in the phrase "big, fat, red-pen markup", which is missing two commas and a hyphen. You aren't blaming O'Malley for your grammar errors, are you?

 

[texas_ex2000]

Criticizing O'Malley for grammar errors would be silly even if he made a grammar error. But the sentence you quote is perfect. The modifier isn't misplaced, every word is spelled correctly, and usage is proper. You can't possibly be referring to the split infinitive, which most grammarians say (1) is acceptable in standard, modern English and (b) was never really wrong in the first place.

The only mistakes I see are in the phrase "big, fat, red-pen markup", which is missing two commas and a hyphen. You aren't blaming O'Malley for your grammar errors, are you?

While I am OCD about grammar, and you rightfully got me on my failure to place commas between coordinate adjectives - big sin, I wasn't criticizing the line editor for punctuation mistakes.

I'm criticizing the copy editor. For example, "Seattle had won the Super Bowl until Wilson threw an interception in the end-zone," or, "Save for Texas, California is the biggest state in the contiguous 48 states." Likewise, criminals cannot legally buy firearms. If a criminal acquired a firearm, that is an illegal transaction. Semantics? It depends on your perspective, but saying criminals can legally buy firearms in rhetoric is deceptive and dishonest.

Now a great headline where the meaning transcends proper word usage was the Crimson's headline "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29." I don't think that's what O'Malley was shooting for.

 

[NJlonghorn]

I am OCD about grammar

Me too, lol.

If a criminal acquired a firearm, that is an illegal transaction. Semantics? It depends on your perspective, but saying criminals can legally buy firearms in rhetoric is deceptive and dishonest.

Would "it will remain far too easy for criminals to buy guns on the legal market" have made you happier? While I suppose you have a point, this falls well below my threshold for deception and dishonesty. If anything, he gets honesty points in my book for tacitly admitting a distinction between the legal and black markets, because his proposals would do nothing to keep criminals out of the back market for firearms.

I'm criticizing the copy editor

For such a marginal point, I prefer a copy editor who allows a guest columnist to keep his personal voice.

,

 

[texas_ex2000]

"By adjusting federal procurement policies, the federal government can encourage both gun manufacturers and dealers to prevent trafficking and violence, while spurring innovations that improve gun safety. This means requiring agencies to purchase only cutting-edge guns, such as those that have hidden serial numbers that cannot be defaced."

By the way, using any criteria for federal firearms procurment other than "what best equips our military and law enforcement personnel with the most effective and reliable equipment," is gambling their lives for politics.

 

[UTChE96]

Would "it will remain far too easy for criminals to buy guns on the legal market" have made you happier?

The comment is still based on the flawed logic that criminals need legal channels to purchase firearms. In fact I would expect most criminals would prefer to procure their firearms from illegal channels to make them less traceable.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Call me dumb, but I'm not entirely sure what the point of this thread is. Is it to bash editors' grammar, or is to attack O'Malley's views on gun control?

Frankly, once I read the article's headline, I knew it was going to be little more than anti-NRA fist pumping designed to arouse the emotions of Democratic primary voters, so I'm not going to waste time reading it, which means I won't have any basis to bash O'Malley's grammar. Furthermore, since O'Malley has about as much chance of winning the Democratic nomination as Jim Gilmore has of winning the GOP nomination, what he has to say about guns is of little consequence.

Nevertheless, I drink too much beer to be OCD about anybody's grammar, and I'm sure people could find grammatical errors of some sort in virtually every post I write. However, I have noticed that the presence of very blatant grammatical errors, misspellings, run-on sentences, incorrect punctuation, subject-verb agreement errors, etc. has become extremely common even in professional writing, especially over the last 10 - 15 years. I'm not even looking for such errors, and I find one or more in probably 2/3 of the articles I read. We're far beyond the occasional split infinitive, conclusion of a sentence with a preposition, or use of passive voice (which isn't even incorrect), and of course, there are only about six people in the country who use who/whom correctly.

 

[Sangre Naranjada]

Whom are they? Can you name them?

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Sangre I know you were kidding when you wrote that but it still hurt my eyes.

FYI for the future peace of grammarians and non-English speakers, just remember: who = I/he/we, whom = me/him/us. I'm sure there's an obscure case where that doesn't work, but it'll keep you from getting run over by the grammar police most of the time!

 

[texas_ex2000]

Call me dumb, but I'm not entirely sure what the point of this thread is. Is it to bash editors' grammar, or is to attack O'Malley's views on gun control?

Frankly, once I read the article's headline, I knew it was going to be little more than anti-NRA fist pumping designed to arouse the emotions of Democratic primary voters, so I'm not going to waste time reading it, which means I won't have any basis to bash O'Malley's grammar. Furthermore, since O'Malley has about as much chance of winning the Democratic nomination as Jim Gilmore has of winning the GOP nomination, what he has to say about guns is of little consequence.

Nevertheless, I drink too much beer to be OCD about anybody's grammar, and I'm sure people could find grammatical errors of some sort in virtually every post I write. However, I have noticed that the presence of very blatant grammatical errors, misspellings, run-on sentences, incorrect punctuation, subject-verb agreement errors, etc. has become extremely common even in professional writing, especially over the last 10 - 15 years. I'm not even looking for such errors, and I find one or more in probably 2/3 of the articles I read. We're far beyond the occasional split infinitive, conclusion of a sentence with a preposition, or use of passive voice (which isn't even incorrect), and of course, there are only about six people in the country who use who/whom correctly.

This was the point of my original post. It is a criticism of the gun-control lobby's rhetoric.

"criminals cannot legally buy firearms. If a criminal acquired a firearm, that is an illegal transaction. Semantics? It depends on your perspective, but saying criminals can legally buy firearms in rhetoric is deceptive and dishonest."