by Ashlie Harper, Intern
Yesterday, I went to a seminar held by CareerTrack that spoke about grammar and proofreading. My parents and I thought it would be a great opportunity to expand my skills with the English language, especially since I hope to become an editor one day. I walked into the chilly conference room at 9:00 a.m. with high hopes. I was excited to learn more about the language, which I was so deeply in love with, and also to brush up on the grammar skills that I have slowly began to lose since freshman year of high school. What I didn’t expect was to walk out of the Ramada Hotel with a new understanding of literature and the importance of a simple sentence. So many people don’t think twice about writing an email and pushing send, trusting that spell-check caught all the wrong words. But do you ever think about the words spell-check corrected? Do we learn from our mistakes or do we rely on a computer to fix them, forgetting them in mere minutes? I think people should appreciate the language and the rules of English and notice what they’ve been missing this whole time.
I have a quick quiz for you. Stare at the next paragraph for eight seconds, and eight seconds only. Count how many times the letter “F” is used.
Go.
FINISHED FILES ARE THE
RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC
STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS
Now stop! No more peeking. How many did you count? Three? Four? Five? I’m guessing many of you didn’t reach the number six, which is the correct amount of times the letter is found. Our eyes see only what we want them to see. We skip over the small words, like “of,” and focus on the big picture. The seminar made me realize that we need the basic knowledge of English to understand what were missing.
I want to ask you one more thing. How many of you have ever noticed the arrow on a FedEx truck? I know I didn’t. And even when staring at it for over a minute, I still had no clue. Take a look.
See it? In between the E and the X, where they connect? This is proof that the small things in life may not be the most important, but are worthy to take a look at. I want to immerse myself in the smaller details, and start truly seeing what I’ve been missing all along.
