• corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    I did a journalism

    Indeed.

    What if one ‘did’ 5 journalisms?

    [ESL students: ‘journalism’, like ‘traffic’ and ‘mail’, aren’t words that are themselves broken into quantities, and so aren’t pluralized. ‘5 traffics’ is nonsense, like ‘a traffic’, and will make people frown. Secondly, ‘doing journalism’, while better, is still lazy for verbs like ‘literally’ is lazy for adverbs]

      • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
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        5 months ago

        Journalism is no place for jokes. This isn’t the only ungrammatical language in the article. If they want to be taken seriously, a good proofreader is essential. Otherwise, they’ll be perceived as you suggest: a joke.

        • noodlejetski@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          I don’t think their goal is to become the next Reuters. as far as I can tell, the articles on the website are posted by one (1) person, and they’re free to express themselves in whatever way the want.

          besides, for me at least, the phrase carries a specific meaning. it’s a self-deprecating quip, an acknowledgment that what they did wasn’t some super serious journalistic work, given that it mostly comprised of sending Mozilla an email, and doesn’t warrant using something that would indicate more extensive journalistic work like “I did some digging” or “I investigated”.

          • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
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            5 months ago

            That is one possible interpretation of the language. Without knowing something about the author, the blog itself could be a disinformation campaign.

            Assuming it’s genuine, we agree that they have the right to say whatever they want so long as it doesn’t present a clear and present danger. And readers have the right to decide they’re wrong or uninformed.

    • CaptObvious@literature.cafe
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      5 months ago

      Exactly. Non-count nouns can’t take indefinite articles (because indefinite articles are a version of the number “one”).

      Together with the other ungrammatical elements, this article has little credibility. It can probably be safely dismissed.