In 17 years of teaching English composition in Greenville public schools, Yvonne Mason had seen these blunders many times before.
在格林维尔公立学校教授英语作文的17年里,伊冯梅森以前多次看到过这些错误。
Redundancies. Faulty capitalization. Lack of clarity and specificity.
裁员、错误的资本化一类词语缺乏足够的辨识度和专一性。
But Mason wasn’t grading a student paper. She was reading a letter she received from President Donald Trump.
但梅森并没有给学生的论文评分。她正在读一封她从唐纳德特朗普总统那里收到的信。
I have never, ever, received a letter with this many silly mistakes, Mason said.
“我从来没有收到过带有这么多愚蠢错误的信,”梅森说。
The former Mauldin High School teacher promptly did what she had done thousands of times before: She corrected the writing and returned it, this one going back to the White House.
这位曾经的高中老师很快就做了她以前做过的事情:她修改了信件,并把他邮回,最后这封信又回到了白宫。
Mason recognizes, of course, that the form letter she received from the president was very likely written by a staff member, not Trump, though the letter does include Trump’s signature. It came in reply to a letter she’d written about the Feb. 14 school shooting in Florida.
当然,梅森承认,尽管总统的这封信上有特朗普的签名,但很可能是由一名工作人员所写,而不是特朗普。这是她写的关于2月14日佛罗里达学校枪击事件的一封信。
A photo of Mason’s corrections has been widely shared on social media.
梅森的更正照片在社交媒体上广为流传。
When you get letters from the highest level of government, you expect them to be at least mechanically correct, Mason said.
“当你收到来自政府最高层的信件时,你会认为他们至少是他们机制是正确的,”梅森说。
She dinged the Trump letter particularly for repeatedly capitalizing "nation," "federal," "president" and "state," turning these common nouns into proper nouns.
她对特朗普的信提出了特别的要求,尤其是反复出现的“nation”、“federal”、“president”和“state”一类词语,她把这些普通的名词变成了专有名词。
Using her signature purple ink - since harsh red ink is discouraged by some educators these days - Mason identified 11 instances of faulty capitalization in Trump’s letter.
梅森使用她标志性的紫色墨水(由于一些教育工作者对看似严厉的赤字感到气馁)在特朗普的信中标出了11个错误的大写字母。
’Federal’ is capitalized only when used as part of a proper noun, e.g. the name of an agency, Mason wrote.
“federal”只在作为专有名词的一部分使用时大写,例如一个机构的名字,”梅森写道。
She resisted the idea of attaching a grade to the letter.
她没有想过给这封信打分。
If it had been written in middle school, I’d give it a C or C-plus, she said. "If it had been written in high school, I’d give it a D."
“如果它是在中学里写的,我会给它C或C+,”她说。“如果它是在高中写的,我会给它D。”
The Greenville News reached out to the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence, but officials were unavailable for comment.
格林维尔的消息传到了白宫的总统通信办公室,但记者无法联系到官员们发表评论。
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