You know, I like Key lime pie. In fact, it’s my favorite flavor of pie, but I only eat it if the graham cracker crust is homemade. No store-bought Key lime pie for me!
So I was pretty excited about a Key lime pie recipe I found in a local magazine. Until I read the introduction, that is. If the pie is as good as the writing, it must be awful. Take a look!
“Even as a Florida native (Fourth generation, actually), I can’t tell you exactly where the genius of Key lime pie originated. There are tales of late 20th century sponge fishermen out at sea off the coast of the Florida Keys whipping it up from what they had on their boat (presumably cans of sweetened condensed milk, Key limes, and eggs—weird, right?). Or perhaps it was the brilliant Bahamian cook known only as Aunt Sally who invented it for her boss, the first Florida millionaire, William Curry. I even found mention of a botanist being the first to make Key lime pie.
“Whoever it was, we are forever in debt to them for creating Florida’s favorite and best dessert. A few things about it are for certain: It must be made with sweetened condensed milk (No substitutes! Trust me, I tried.). The only acceptable topping is meringue, forget about whipped cream, sorry.”
It goes on a bit, but the last few sentences are, surprisingly enough, error free.
Here’s what I see:
“Even as a Florida native (Fourth generation, actually), I can’t tell you exactly where the genius of Key lime pie originated. There are tales of late 20th century sponge fishermen out at sea off the coast of the Florida Keys whipping it up from what they had on their boat (presumably cans of sweetened condensed milk, Key limes, and eggs—weird, right?). Or perhaps it was the brilliant Bahamian cook known only as Aunt Sally who invented it for her boss, the first Florida millionaire, William Curry. I even found mention of a botanist being the first to make Key lime pie.
“Whoever it was, we are forever in debt to them for creating Florida’s favorite and best dessert. A few things about it are for certain: It must be made with sweetened condensed milk (No substitutes! Trust me, I tried.). The only acceptable topping is meringue, forget about whipped cream, sorry.”
So maybe eight punctuation and grammar mistakes in two paragraphs aren’t really enough to write home about, except…this is a magazine. You know, like, professionals are writing and editing this material. This ain’t rocket science. Let’s talk about it.
- “Even as a Florida native (Fourth generation, actually), I can’t tell
Rule: When you start off with parenthetical information inside a sentence, start with lowercase unless your first word is a proper noun. I don’t care if you’re going to write a full sentence inside the parenthesis, unless it’s a proper noun, the first letter is always lowercase. If you do have a second sentence following that, then uppercase the first word in the second sentence, BUT! unless it’s a proper noun, the first word in parentheses is always lowercase.
2. tales of late 20th century sponge fisherman out at sea off the
Rule: 20th century is a compound adjective modifying the phrase “sponge fisherman.” There’s no way you can avoid a hyphen here: 20th-century.
Plus, why the phrase “out at sea”? Isn’t “out at sea” basically the same thing as “off the coast”? I just edited a manuscript where the author was constantly larding up the text with phrases like “precious and valuable” and “thankful and appreciative.” It’s like wading through muck! Use the best word or phrase and let the other stuff go! In this case, “off the coast of the Florida Keys” is all you need to know.
***************
This is actually not a mistake, but a comment about writing style. This next sounds like a 12-year-old’s diary, like, so, like, sixth grade:
…weird, right?).
A chirpy sixth grader. A chirpy sixth grader who tells me something is “weird,” and then demands that I agree with her. (It’s a “her” writing.)
Spare me.
********
3. “Whoever it was, we are forever in debt to them for creating
OUCH! Multiple mistakes here!
First, “whoever,” This should be “whomever.” You know why? Here’s the rule: Use “whoever” if you can switch up the sentence and use “he,”; if you switch it up and have to use “him,” it’s “whomever.” Naturally, this does not make sense unless you have the sentence first.
The sentence is…We are in debt to…him.
Whomever we are in debt to.
See?
So, it’s “whomever.”
And maybe an even more profound mistake is the noun-pronoun confusion. “Whoever” is singular (the “it,” you see). We’re good so far because the writer uses “it.” Singular. But the pronoun is plural: them. Wrong!
The sentence should read “Whomever it was, we are forever in debt to him (or her!) for…
The (or her) is my attempt at humor, since we aren’t sure of the sex of the person, and both sexes are mentioned in the text. You could certainly do away with the parentheses.
4. certain: It must be made with sweetened condensed milk (No
Here we have an interesting situation. When you are citing a rule after a colon, generally the next word is capitalized. I’m not keen on the capitalization we see here; I’d feel better if the “rule” said “Key lime pie crust must be made…” That’s a rule, in my mind. You can take away the introductory phrase and the “rule” stands alone. But with the “it,” not so much. This is where I’d talk about “good writing,” as opposed to “this is a really bad mistake” because the colon is absolutely necessary, but I’d reword a little to justify the capitalizing.
But, the capitalized “N” in “no” at the end of the line is a for-sure mistake. Remember what I said about the first letter in parenthetical material inside a sentence. This is the second time this writer has made this mistake.
5. meringue, forget about whipped cream, sorry.
This is not surprising, especially after the “…weird, right?” line. I hate this chirpy tone. It’s juvenile.
Here you need a break between the “meringue” and the “whipped cream,” a much more definite and complete break than is afforded by a comma. Then you’ve got that aside in “sorry.”
There are a couple of different ways to slice this.
meringue—forget about whipped cream, sorry.
meringue—forget about whipped cream (sorry).
meringue (forget about whipped cream, sorry).
meringue (forget about whipped cream). Sorry.
You’ve got a command voice in the “forget about the whipped cream” and then the aside voice in “sorry.”
I think I’d go with
meringue—forget about whipped cream (sorry).
I still don’t like it, so how about this?
meringue (to all you whipped cream fans…sorry!).
Or, because you think you are asking your prose to carry too heavy of a burden, how about
meringue—forget about whipped cream. It’s meringue or go home.
I happened on this particular page. I don’t want to read further. I’m not going to read further. I’m not going to read the recipe, another article, the ads, nothing. No mas. It’s too…irritating.
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