5:02 pm | 27 May 2004 | John of ARC! (in which i am a total bitch AGAIN)

Just super-briefly, I have to share how absolutely, skull-fuckingly grindingly irritating it is when people are applying for this paid internship at CrazyGermanCorp, my place of employment--the advertisement for which, mind you, states SPECIFICALLY "possess exceptional spelling and grammar skills"--with the written equivalent of newspaper shreds reconstituted with packing tape and then transliterated into the Binalog Courier Typostraphy service.* One such fellow crafted this exceptional RUN ON FUCKING SENTENCE:

As a freelance writer for the last 20 years my byline has appeared in major newspapers particularly in S____________ including the S______ D____ M_______ and I have been interviewed & featured in the S________ F________ newspaper for my work as an editor and I was also featured/interviewed on a local S_______ D________ TV talk show for my editorial and writing work.

Another thing? In my little ad I mentioned that a good command of the subtleties of English is required, because the comma-delimited fields we use for data can't be spellchecked, and anyway there are those words like "mantel," as in a fireplace-topping ledge, and then "mantle," as in an overcoat. So then DIS bitch is all:

From: [email protected]
Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 15:04:34 -0700
To: [email protected]
Subject: correction

mantle is more akin to a cloak than an overcoat. mantle's are tradionally sleeveless, while a sleeveless overcoat would surmount to a thick vest.

best of luck with the employee hunting.

Cut to my face and its florid, crankily incredulous expression, the facial equivalent of OH NO YOU DI'IN'T. Rapidly:

Reply:
Thanks for the tip regarding mantles. The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives us:
man�tle � (mntl) n.
1. A loose sleeveless coat worn over outer garments; a cloak.

So it looks as though we are both correct.

By the way, there's no apostrophe in pluralized words ("mantles").

Best wishes,
Claudia

Another chump (whom I'm actually going to interview because he seemed funny in his cover letter) nevertheless wrote about his "above-average grammer skills." Grammer?

The real pi�ce de r�sistance, however, isn't even a human error, really. No. It's just part of someone's r�sum�:

Um. Ahuem. Eurgh. Didn't we stop using "retard" in that sense at least 15 years ago? Guess not. Nice, too, that it's not the Association of. Nope, it's the Association For. But don't you understand how unhireable that makes you, and why? How can I, John Johnson*? How can I hire you and take you off the ARC? GODDAMMIT, JOHN JOHNSON, SOMEBODY'S GOTTA HELP THE RETARDS! clm.

p.s. when i was looking for the Kelsey Grammer picture I found this, too, which is just too nice to keep to myself.