Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Recovering Grammar Neurotic Relapses Briefly

So, I'm reading this novel I happened on, written by an academic and published in 2003 by a university press. On the first page, in the first paragraph:
When dates ask about my field, truth requires that I answer, "Lesbian planets." Although this response never peaks male ardor ...
Argh. "Piques," not "peaks," thought I. Well, maybe she did it deliberately, to suggest that she wants his ardor to make a peak in his trousers. More likely it was just a typo, but on the first freaking page?

I soldiered on. All was well until seven pages later. The narrator is on a plane to Germany, with her cat in her backpack because he'd broken out of his cardboard cat carrier.
"What do you have in there?" asked the woman seated next to me. Norris peaked out ...
Argh. "Peeked", damn it! "Peeked!" The book isn't searchable on Amazon, so I don't know if she does it again. (It is searchable on Google Books, and it doesn't appear that she found it necessary to write "peak" again. Maybe the narrator will climb a mountain peek for a pique across the border?) Thank Cthulhu I didn't buy it; I just checked it out of the library. Once in a while a reader just has to vent.