Happy Mother’s’ Day

Happy Mother’s Day and grammar in one place!

Caption says: “I have two mommies. I know where the apostrophe goes.”

AutoCorrect can be fun!

 

Some people do have problems with your and you’re…

At Bateson Proofreading, we go the extra mile to ensure that your content is easy to read, is grammatically correct and has no spelling mistakes – feel free to contact us at batesonproofreading@gmail.com.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An International Hero!

From History.com

Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.

In the months before his assassination, hebecame increasingly concerned with the problem of economic inequality in America. He organized a Poor People’s Campaign to focus on the issue, including an interracial poor people’s march on Washington, and in March 1968 traveled to Memphis in support of poorly treated African-American sanitation workers. On March 28, a workers’ protest march led by King ended in violence and the death of an African-American teenager. King left the city but vowed to return in early April to lead another demonstration.

On April 3, back in Memphis, King gave his last sermon, saying, “We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”

One day after speaking those words, Dr. King was shot and killed by a sniper. As word of the assassination spread, riots broke out in cities all across the United Statesand National Guard troops were deployed in Memphis and Washington, D.C.On April 9, King was laid to rest in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. Tens of thousands of people lined the streets to pay tribute to King’s casket as it passed by in a wooden farm cart drawn by two mules.

The evening of King’s murder, a Remington .30-06 hunting rifle was found on the sidewalk beside a rooming house one block from the Lorraine Motel. During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray. A two-bit criminal, Ray escaped a Missouriprison in April 1967 while serving a sentence for a holdup. In May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, which at the time was relatively easy.

On June 8, Scotland Yard investigators arrested Ray at a London airport. He was trying to fly to Belgium, with the eventual goal, he later admitted, of reaching Rhodesia. Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe, was at the time ruled by an oppressive and internationally condemned white minority government. Extradited to the United States, Ray stood before a Memphis judge in March 1969 and pleaded guilty to King’s murder in order to avoid the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Three days later, he attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he was innocent of King’s assassination and had been set up as a patsy in a larger conspiracy. He claimed that in 1967, a mysterious man named “Raoul” had approached him and recruited him into a gunrunning enterprise. On April 4, 1968, he said, he realized that he was to be the fall guy for the King assassination and fled to Canada. Ray’s motion was denied, as were his dozens of other requests for a trial during the next 29 years.

During the 1990s, the widow and children of Martin Luther King Jr. spoke publicly in support of Ray and his claims, calling him innocent and speculating about an assassination conspiracy involving the U.S. government and military. U.S. authorities were, in conspiracists’ minds, implicated circumstantially. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover obsessed over King, who he thought was under communist influence. For the last six years of his life, King underwent constant wiretapping and harassment by the FBI. Before his death, Dr. King was also monitored by U.S. military intelligence, which may have been asked to watch King after he publicly denounced the  Vietnam Warin 1967. Furthermore, by calling for radical economic reforms in 1968, including guaranteed annual incomes for all, King was making few new friends in the Cold War-era U.S. government.

Over the years, the assassination has been reexamined by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the Shelby County, Tennessee, district attorney’s office, and three times by the U.S. Justice Department. The investigations all ended with the same conclusion: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King. The House committee acknowledged that a low-level conspiracy might have existed, involving one or more accomplices to Ray, but uncovered no evidence to definitively prove this theory. In addition to the mountain of evidence against him–such as his fingerprints on the murder weapon and his admitted presence at the rooming house on April 4–Ray had a definite motive in assassinating King: hatred. According to his family and friends, he was an outspoken racist who informed them of his intent to kill Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He died in 1998.

At Bateson Proofreading, we go the extra mile to ensure that your content is easy to read, is grammatically correct and has no spelling mistakes – feel free to contact us at batesonproofreading@gmail.com .

OK

On this day in 1839, the initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll correct,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.

During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as “kewl” for “cool” or “DZ” for “these,” the “in crowd” of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included “KY” for “No use” (“know yuse”), “KG” for “No go” (“Know go”), and “OW” for all right (“oll wright”).

Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was formally called the “O.K. Club,” which referred both to Van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook” (based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York), and to the term recently made popular in the papers. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of “OK” to denigrate Van Buren’s political mentor Andrew Jackson. According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation “OK” to cover up his own misspelling of “all correct.”

The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind “OK” was an American linguist named Allen Walker Read. An English professor at Columbia University, Read dispelled a host of erroneous theories on the origins of “OK,” ranging from the name of a popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, “OK” has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America’s greatest lingual exports.

From History.com

At Bateson Proofreading, we go the extra mile to ensure that your content is easy to read, is grammatically correct and has no spelling mistakes – feel free to contact us at batesonproofreading@gmail.com.

Interesting Information

Did you know that “Dammit I’m Mad” spelled backwards is “Dammit I’m Mad”

 

At Bateson Proofreading, we go the extra mile to ensure that your content is easy to read, is grammatically correct and has no spelling mistakes – feel free to contact us at batesonproofreading@gmail.com .

A simple misunderstanding…

This shows the effect of not listening well.

People are not the only creatures that can have a misunderstanding…

 

 

Golden Girls? Gotta love them…

I just had to post this – it made me laugh on and off all day!

The text reads:

I made a traffic stop on an elderly lady the other day for speeding on MN State Highway 210 at Mile Marker 197 just East of McGregor, MN.

I asked for her driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance.

The lady took out the required information and handed it to me. In with the cards I was somewhat surprised (due to her advanced age) to see she had a Conceal Carry Permit. I looked at her and asked if she had a weapon in her possession at this time.

She responded that she indeed had a .45 automatic in her glove box.

Something – body language, or the way she said it – made me want to ask if she had any other firearms. She did admit to also having a 9mm Glock in her center console. Now I had to ask one more time if that was all. She responded once again that she did have just one more, a .38 special in her purse. I then asked her what was she so afraid of.

She looked me right in the eye and said, “Not a f—ing thing!”

Is School Necessary?

Relationships in the Workplace

Most of us want the same things from life: relationships that are positive, co-operative and respectful, with everyone working for a common goal and purpose. In order to develop strong workplace relationships, a person must be an active listener, show respect, be trustworthy, care about (and know) their customers and be committed to excellent performance.

A new employee comes into the workplace uninformed and must listen to those with more experience. The simplest way to understand what is important is to ask, then listen to the answer. Do not be afraid to ask questions to ensure that you understand the process, rules and procedures fully. Do not allow any pre-conceived notions to bias your thinking and reactions. Active listening also shows respect.

In order to make any relationship more effective, we must treat each other with respect. Respect is the core of any good relationship. We show respect by listening to the other person and by trying to understand their views. I have always believed that people are not machines; if you treat them with respect and understanding, and listen to their feelings, they will want to give more and work better together.

It is important for you to do what you say. People have to know that you can be trusted to deliver on your commitments and that your word is reliable. Trustworthiness is not only important to co-workers – clients also must be able to trust that you will always have their best interest at heart, that they can count on you to provide answers.

Customers come in many different shapes and sizes. They may be internal (fellow co-workers, someone in a different department) and external. Always treat all customers, both internal and external, with respect and dignity.

A person’s work attitude and quality affects their work relationships. You need to commit to excellent performance, part of which means showing initiative and not waiting for someone to point work out. Always offer to help others when your workload is low and theirs is not. Show a can-do attitude that proves that you are not afraid of a challenge and that you will carry your weight when times get tough.

Several pitfalls to avoid when trying to build a relationship include:

• Being too controlling
• Assigning blame and not taking any on yourself
• Refusing to listen and/or refusing to speak – using silence as a weapon
• Assuming you know the answer because you don’t want to ask the question and risk looking bad
• Never asking for help
• Refusing to give information that is needed
• Being a know-it-all

Relationships are important in all aspects of life. Society consists of a web of relationships, requiring all parties to work together in order to create something special and worthwhile. What makes society work best are relationships that are positive, co-operative, respectful, and where people watch out for each other. Organizations function best when people feel safe and valued.

The Green Thing

Borrowed from a friend:

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

Remember: Don’t make old People mad.

We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.