By: Unknown. There are two things wrong here - the first is blindingly obvious. You should NEVER use a colon after a preposition, in this case the word "by". My eighth grade teacher (code name: "the bird") beat that thoroughly into my skull after losing points for it on approximately 638 consecutive poems I had to write.
The second and slightly less obvious problem.... does that poem sound familiar? Sorry Bette Midler, not only do Journalism students here not give you credit for writing your own song, but they will butcher it too. Exactly how does a river drown a need? I don't know either. So much for journalistic integrity.
Comment 1: As a university employee and an instructor of composition (yes, I am playing the English degree card), I must disagree with your emphatic disapproval of the colon usage. I'm sorry that you had such a terrible experience with your English teacher because it is perfectly acceptable to use that punctuation since it's standard English. Just like you can end a sentence in a preposition or start a sentence with "and." And recall that at Christmastime, gift tags come pre-printed with "TO:" and "FROM:" It's hardly an egregious error and arguably more a matter of personal opinion and style in contemporary English.
ReplyDeleteComment 2: I LOL'd at the "Unknown." That's hilarious. You should definitely download a copy of Bette Midler's song and play it for them. The students might be very impressed with you and also credit can be given where it is due.
I should have known the bird would lead me wrong... forcing her preferred grammar on me! Thank you for clearing that misconception up. (Is that a dangling participle?)
ReplyDeleteYeah this is the 'land of illegal cover songs' so they might not understand the importance of message but perhaps I will try.