MMeM, Vol.11 Issue 30 – Read that?

Nto beat a dead horse, but USA today stepped up recently to say, “Hey, we don’t have proof-readers either”, rather we rely on readers to notify us of our mistakes. One of these masterpieces of mis-speak err mis-type has already been corrected but I’m sure they are relieved to know that I grabbed a screen capture before the fix.

It was a story about New Horizons reaching the furthest former planet in our solar system, tiny dwarf planet Pluto. As the story detailed, the New Horizons spacecraft was launched almost 10 years ago. I wonder if when it was launched, scientists feared that the 10 year 3.3 BILLION mile journey would be achieved shortly after fellow scientists downgraded the formerly 9th planet of our solar system? With all of the world’s ills, it may be far more astonishing that there is any effort spent on reclassifying a sphere in space which changes what billions of people here on Earth were trained to learn for nearly a century. Hey science, just let it be and let it go. Or, keep your new ridiculous meaningless classification to yourselves and move onto better topics like, oh I don’t know, cancer, AIDS, hunger, etc.

Here is the story which was posted above a big info-graphic, showing in detail the stages of New Horizons’ 3.3 BILLION mile journey.

Yes, the story says, “The latest image, which was taken on July 9 from 3.3 MILLION miles away…” See, because words mean things, this sentence falsely reports the distance to Pluto by more than 3 THOUSAND MILLION miles. The difference between an “M” and a “B” can be galactic. No, spell check doesn’t yet see the problem with errors like these and subsequently gave its “Spell Check Complete!” sign-off message to the submitter.

This next submission from USA today is so complex I can’t even find the mistake and I think I need a nap trying to re-read this 5-6 times.

I believe the intent in the first “sentence”, consisting of 39 words, was to say that harsh sentences, not including THIS one, handed down in the past be reduced today. However, near as I can tell the American Ninja WordiestRun-on actually communicates that commutations be handed out for sentences “that they would today because of……”  FADE TO BLACK  Uncle.