My initial reaction was to write to the originator and tell her that because of the way she used the word “insure,” it should have been spelled e-n-s-u-r-e. Insure means to cover something financially. Ensure means to make sure something happens. I wanted to add that she had spelled the word “acknowledgment” the British way, with the extra e: “acknowledgement.” In America, we must spell it “acknowledgment,” without the e between the g and the m. Spell checker programs won’t catch and fix either of those errors; it takes the eye and mind of a skilled editor to catch those things. I would hope that someone who calls herself an editor would catch them in her own work, though.
What’s an editor to do when a person claiming to be an editor makes egregious errors in a blog post on the Internet? Unfortunately nothing, but I can vent to fellow writers, as I have done today. Thank you for listening, and oh, thank you for overlooking any of my own errors. I am, after all, only human. Oh, why then do I expect other editors to be super human? Down, ego! Down!
I've had the same difficulty when I read friends' books, a well-known author, or someone my age. I remember reading at the end of a book the author stating that the errors are his and don't write his editor about this subject. That let me know others beside me were editing as they read.
I have a question. So many newspaper and magazine writers begin an article with "It" as in "It was an amazing day." I learned that "it" is an antecedent and should not begin a sentence. I'm requiring my students in Writing Family Stories to avoid beginning a story this way. What is your opinion?