It's all about trust!

by | Apr 28, 2017 | Uncategorized

I don’t know anything about chiropractic, thankfully, but I recently was hired to edit website content for a chiropractor. Part of the deal is to research various industry-specific terms, spellings, capitalizations, and so on, so I looked around the internet.
Chiropractic, it turns out, demands a fair amount of trust between patient and practitioner. How much confidence can someone have in a practitioner who writes something like this:
On the Left is an abnormal curved patient x-ray; where the patient’s abnormal shape is shown by the Red dashed line In reality, the only way to see what an individual patient’s spine alignment looks likes, is to obtain spinal imaging such as Radiography or X-ray. No-one would not take their car to the mechanic and say: “Something’s wrong with my engine but don’t look under the hood”–Would you? Then why would anyone want a Chiropractor to adjust-treat their spine without having an x-ray to see what the person’s spine looked like? —Would You?.
Mistakes? How about TWENTY SEVEN. Let me count the ways.
On the Left (1) is an abnormal curved patient x-ray (2); (3) where the patient’s (4) abnormal shape is shown by the Red (5) dashed line (6) In reality, the only way to see what an individual patient’s (7) spine alignment looks likes (8), (9)  is to obtain spinal imaging (10) such as (Should this have an article, like “a,” with it? I didn’t count it as a “mistake,” per se, but it’s on my radar.) Radiography (11) or (Same here.) X-ray. No-one (12) would not (13) take their (14) car to the mechanic and say: (15) “Something’s (16, 17) wrong with my engine (18) but don’t (19) look under the hood”–(20, 21) Would you? Then why would anyone want a Chiropractor (22) to adjust-treat (23) their (24) spine without having an x-ray (25) to see what the person’s (26) spine looked like? —Would You?. (27)

  1. lowercase
  2. it’s “X-ray”
  3. lowercase
  4. it’s “patient’s”
  5. lowercase
  6. period
  7. it’s “patient’s”!!
  8. should read “like”
  9. no comma
  10. comma
  11. lowercase
  12. it’s “no one”
  13. double negative; cut the “not”
  14. A singular noun (“no one”) should have a singular pronoun, which, in this case, should read “his or her.”
  15. I’d use a comma, not a colon.
  16. Need a quotation mark: “Something’s”
  17. And you need an apostrophe: it’s the contraction of “something is.”
  18. comma
  19. it’s “don’t”
  20. period
  21. end quote (double quotes!)
  22. lowercase
  23. I’d go with one or the other, but not both.
  24. Again, singular noun (“anyone”) needs “his or her.”
  25. it’s “X-ray”!!
  26. it’s “person’s”!!
  27. Since when do you use a period after a question mark?

I have an aunt whose favorite expression is “Geez, Louise.”
For this kind of writing, I can think of a couple of better expressions.
And no way is someone like that going to get within two miles of my spine!!