Sumday I talk gud

Sometime in the last week or so, two Tulsa hospitals took out full-page ads announcing that they'll no longer accept certain insurance plans (they're encouraging people to use another insurance plan which, surprise, surprise, they own).

In a written statement to the media, one of the hospitals gave a line to the effect that costs with these banned companies would be more than they could "bare."

Uh . . . NO. Sounds alike, same letters, major difference.

(To be fair, I don't know where the misspelling came from -- the hospital statement or the media. Either way, it's an inexcusable mistake.)

Soon after I saw that, I had the chance to read the report commissioned by Tulsa's mayor re the police chief. (The full rant is in the archives, probably late February.) The guy who did the review, Frank Hagedorn, is a partner in the law firm of Hall, Estill -- a highly-regarded firm. And it is, truly, one of the most poorly written, misspelled, mispunctuated, repetitive pieces I've read in ages.

Am I wrong to expect a lawyer to be able to write in a straightforward manner? I'm not suggesting he should be able to spell or punctuate properly -- just write coherently without backtracking, rambling, repeating himself, etc. And whoever typed the report -- whether he did it himself or it was someone on his staff -- that person is way overpaid if that's the best s/he can do. S/he needs a refresher course or a new job.

How can we expect school-age kids to bother learning spelling and grammar and how to choose the proper words when adults who should know better obviously don't? A major hospital, a major law firm, even major publishers are making mistakes that my fifth-grade teacher would have smacked me for, and no one cares.

Okay, that's not really fair. My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Henson, was a kind woman who probably never smacked anyone in her life. She taught long enough to have my father, my sisters, and me.

So she wouldn't have hit me. But she would have been sorely disappointed. Rachel8:34 PM