grammar – Page 4 – don't confuse the narrator

workshop discussion

I’ve been thinking about workshops recently.

No, not the sort that illustrates this post, but writing workshops for the commentary, critique and creation of original texts.
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I understand that there are people who have little grasp of the grammar, syntax and spelling of their own language, but should they really be allowed to work in jobs that require them to write for the public?

Texts published on web pages are often faulty – many are written by badly paid hack writers with a deadline to meet – but it’s fairly simple to go back and correct them.

Slogans and texts for major advertising campaigns, on the other hand, are worked on by teams of professionals and they pass through the hands of many people before being approved. And yet we get things like this:

Advertising slogan: "It's time oil companies get behind the development of renewable energy"

of gender and generalities

There’s a general strike planned in Spain for this coming Wednesday and this advert appears in El Público today:

The call to action comes from the Izquierda Unida, the main left wing party in Spain (as opposed to the PSOE – the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party – currently in power and not half as left wing as the name might lead you to expect).

Whatever my sympathies might be for the left, and for those who intend to strike, I object to the phrase nosotras y nosotros.
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possessed

Apostrophes almost always give Spaniards problems. But they – the Spaniards, not the apostrophes – do love the “genitivo sajón”, as they call it, and seldom miss an opportunity to use it, even when, as in the case of the club whose sign this is, it isn’t appropriate.

To be fair, it can be complicated trying to unravel who owns what.
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parenthetical pharmaceuticals

I found this on a box of non-prescription tablets:

instructions for taking tablets — I'm a little bit in the dark about the instructions

The way I read that, the commas make the phrase “half an hour before going to bed” parenthetical, so you are advised to go into a darkened room to take the tablet. After that, presumably you can switch the lights back on to go to sleep.

There’s probably some neat pun on “comma” and “coma”, too, but I can’t think of one right now.