Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for June 21, 2024

Mind the kerning. Beware of the rivers.

I need proof.

The proof lies in the pudding. No idea how it got there, though.

AI in the murky flesh, in a misty swamp of Nouveau grammar and spelling.

Caution: Proof reader on duty. Please stow all errors in locked overhead compartment.

This reminds me of two songs, “Take Me To Your Ladder” by Buddy Clinton, and “Take Me To Your Leader Cha-Cha-Cha” by SAM SPACE and the CADETS.

Today’s Senryū du Jour:

Hyphenless, the task

commences nonetheless: Night

falls hard in these words.

— Pru Freeder, in “Spot Checking the Twilit Zoned 4 Biz, This Galley, Copy?” © 2024 Double Dash Homographs LithoGraphee

Teresa needs readers.

oh no! it’s happening ..

My guess the proofreader and the “take me to your leader” are the same person.

D.a.m.n. it all …!

From some of the things I’ve read lately, it’s hard to believe such individuals even exst!!

We come in pieces. Ned eediting. Held!

Thirst-tee. Take me to your litre…

Mew here. Eksqueeze my ascent. Bing me to your pook radar?

“I am Proof Reaper, destroyer of words.”

— from Bhagavad Vitameatavegamin

“You folks always say you want hard evidence of alien encounters, so let’s get on with it, shall we.”

— Immortal words from humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life

Mistakes happen, what’s important is that you learn how to blame them on somebody else.

Do we really need a proof reader here?

Today’s [ backup ] Senryū du Jour:

Why’d anyone want

to go meet some prude readers

and hanged roof beaders?

— Basil Fawlty, in an aside to himself, while reading aloud about structural challenges in “The Three Little Pigs” to Manuel, in a bid for Polly’s affections

Yesterday on page 22 I found 3 separate instances where an Oxford comma was necessary. There were at least 15 split infinitives in the document. 12 sentences ended with prepositions. Apostrophe abuse was rife,

Shout out to Hitlers speech proofreader. The original grammar nazi.

I am in a nation of well fed people.

USA, feed me a Lobster Stake meal in a can.

Spelling Check in a bottle.

Most home runs Henry Arron.

Henry’s home plate totals.

Arron Judd goes park it.

Wow your clock what caused that.

…Here yea…

…here yea…

…rum: 80 proof…

…tequila: 100 proof…

…vodka: 180 proof…

…whiskey:120 proof…

…the proof is in the tasting…

…Froglandia Bubble Cream: 192 proof…

…Here yea…

…here yea…

…read all about it…there is proof that sharks are safer than batteries…

In olden days, there were readers of everything from palms to cranial ridges and entrails and back again - even stool-checkers for the emperor’s health, and hat and coat-checkers to help create the important tip-gig economy so vital to vibrant national health today.

However, as much as it would personally enrich me, professionally and financially — perhaps even spiritually — to throw my support behind, and put my own personal behind behind endorsement of the idea of a private consortium of poot-readers, seems a mere brainfart of a dream in the pipewind, brainstem, and pipend of surrealist conservative whimsy.

However, if we’re going to create such a vast new industry, the common working stiff must be represented… must be made to bend from the waist and contribute, issuing forth opinions aplenty… and breathe free the gathering gloom such an enterprise of this nature must surely be about to create and then celebrate.

— from an informal address to Parliament via the tapping out of a secretive, so-called Porcelain Code, known only to the hush-hush Exterminati, on the asylum’s plumbing systems with a soup ladle, by Patient Zigmund X-9 (who reportedly could verify all of Nostradamus’s predictions for the future, but only after “Liver & Lima Bean Nights” at the Institution

Yes, the roof-breader is the only one who can make it tasty, even though it will still be indigestible.

Sadly she was a tragic victim of dodgy auto-correction.

I can hardly wait for the cream of fish eye bagel. Spread the word.

Cheese it, the cops.

Mr. Burns in The Springfield Files?

Gray-green gloaming-ghosts —

gallant giggle guy… grins.

Ghastly glow! Gads! Gone!

— “Galliteration”, Gaspar G. “Gigi” Galimatias

I shot Marshall Dillon,

But I did not shoot Festus.

Take me out to the ballgame.

Take me to the church.

Take me to the Prom.

Take me to the picnic.

Take me out to dinner.

Take me to the movies.

Take me out to the wood shed?

Oh, I don’t think so.

— Preface, Prima Donna Handbook

Real proof readers (and editors) are an extinct species. Just read any news website to prove it for yourself. So if you want to be taken to a proof reader you’ll have to visit a graveyard and dig one up.