Staff Meeting

Author's Note: Standard fanfic disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters, I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. That's it, typing practice. I'll return them to their actual owners (relatively) undamaged. Based on characters and situations created by Rockne S. O'Bannon. This is an amateur work of fiction; no profit beyond pleasure was derived from the writing. Actually, that's a fib. I'm hoping to derive some profit from this story, albeit intellectual rather than financial. I generally loathe "preachy" stories, preferring to reserve sermons for Sunday. But this is a preachy story. Explanations continued in author's note at the end of this chapter.

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Staff Meeting

by Susan M. M.

seaQuest DSV

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Captain Nathan Bridger sat at the head of the table. Dr. Kristin Westphalen sat at his right side, Commander Jonathan Ford at his left. He looked at the officers and scientists gathered around the table. His gray eyes were stern. "I've called this meeting because Dr. Westphalen and I have something we need to discuss with you."

"Congratulations, sir!" Lt. Ben Krieg said enthusiastically. "I'm sure you'll be very happy together. Have you set the date yet?"

Dr. Westphalen glared at the dark-haired lieutenant.

Cmdr. Ford turned to Bridger, and completely deadpan, asked, "Permission to keelhaul, sir?"

"Denied." Pointedly ignoring Krieg, the captain continued, "Dr. Westphalen and I have noticed a problem with your reports."

"Your spelling is terrible. Your grammar is atrocious. Everyone in this room is a college graduate," the auburn-haired Chief Medical Officer pointed out. "Most of you have advanced graduate degrees. There is no excuse for this level of incompetence in official reports."

"It hardly does the boat credit," Bridger added, his voice deceptively mild, "when reports go to UEO Headquarters full of run-on sentences, comma splices, tense changes, subject-verb disagreement, and misspellings. It doesn't make Admiral Noyce happy, and it doesn't make me happy."

The room fell silent. A ship's captain is the last of the absolute monarchs. Failing to make him happy was a very serious offense.

"And as for my people," Dr. Westphalen chimed in, "most of you are sending reports back to universities and laboratories up-world. I find it embarrassing, as Chief Science Officer, to let reports with such egregious errors off the boat. And I have enough work of my own that I don't have time to proofread and correct your reports."

"Hey, I always use spellcheck," Lucas Wolenczak volunteered. The sixteen-year-old computer hacker was the youngest member of the boat's crew.

"Spellcheck is a good start, but it doesn't help with homophones," Bridger said.

"I thought 'don't ask - don't tell' took care of homophones," Krieg joked.

Lt. Cmdr. Katie Hitchcock kicked her ex-husband's shin under the table. "That's homophobes, you idiot."

"Mr. Krieg, what's your official job title?" Captain Bridger asked.

"Supply and Morale Officer, sir," Krieg replied instantly. His voice was serious, even slightly repentant. "Not court jester."

"Then why is this report signed 'Supply and Moral Officer'?" Bridger asked.

"Moral? Ben?" Lucas chuckled.

"That, Mr. Wolenczak, is something a spellcheck program can't catch. Spellcheck will tell you if a word is misspelled. It won't tell you if you've spelled the wrong word correctly," Bridger informed him.

Lucas settled down and sat up straighter in his chair. If the captain was calling him 'Mr. Wolenczak' instead of 'Kiddo' or 'Lucas,' it was definitely time to pay attention.

Dr. Westphalen pushed a button, illuminating the computer screen at the front of the room. "We're having a major problem with its and it's." She pointed to the sentences written on the screen. "I-t-s is a possessive pronoun, meaning belong to it. I-t-apostrophe-s is a contraction for it is." She read aloud from the screen. "Poor dog, it's hungry. Please fill its food bowl." She pointed to the word its' in a red circle with a slash across it. "There is no such word as i-t-s-apostrophe."

She pushed the button again. Three new sentences were displayed. "They're ready to go. Where are their coats? Over there," she read aloud. "They're," she pointed to the word, "is a contraction of they are or they were. Their," she pointed again, "means belonging to them. There is a place, meaning not here." She looked at the men and women crowded around the table. "I don't suppose anyone can tell me what's wrong with that last sentence?"

Lt. j. g. Tim O'Neill instantly raised his hand.

"Anyone other than O'Neill," Bridger requested. "I know you know this, Lieutenant. You probably should have been excused from this meeting. I've yet to find a spelling or grammatical error in any of your reports."

The bespectacled young communications officer tried not to blush.

Dr. Joshua Levin nodded. "It's a sentence fragment."

To be continued ...

Author's Note: Standard fanfic disclaimer that wouldn't last ten seconds in a court of law: these aren't my characters, I'm just borrowing them for, um, typing practice. That's it, typing practice. I'll return them to their actual owners (relatively) undamaged. This is an amateur work of fiction; no profit beyond pleasure was derived from the writing. Actually, that's a fib. I'm hoping to derive some profit from this story, albeit intellectual rather than financial. I generally loathe "preachy" stories, preferring to reserve sermons for Sunday. But this is a preachy story. I'm sick and tired with all the typos on this website, especially with the attitude of so many writers that typos are OK if A, they don't have a beta-reader at the moment, B, they're not good typists, C, they just finished and they want to post the story immediately, etc., etc., etc. Well, A, buy a dictionary and a copy of Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Or get Transitive Vampire or Eats, Shoots, and Leaves from the library. The best investment I ever made was an 8th grade English book I got at a thrift store for fifty cents. B, practice. You'll get better. Don't be in a hurry. Better to do 10 wpm well than 78 wpm badly. C, what's the bloody hurry? Take your time and do the job right, since 90% of you never bother to go back to correct the errors later. {If English is not your native language, or if you have a learning disability, this lecture is not meant for you, but I do advise you to find a trusted beta-reader.} Most of what I know about English grammar, I learned from A, reading well-written books, and B, as a student teacher, trying to stay one lesson ahead of my students. When I was young, formal grammar instruction had fallen out of fashion; we were expected to just pick it up by osmosis. When I became a student teacher, the educational fads had changed, and studying grammatical rules was now "in." And I'd never been taught them! Nothing like being thrown off the dock to learn how to swim, huh? {I'd be lying if I said my stories were error-free, but at least I try to proofread.} So just as Mary Poppins used a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, I'll be using a story to help the spelling and grammar tips go down.

I don't know yet if the next chapter will continue with seaQuest, or switch to Captain Simon Banks or Captain Karen Simms chewing out detectives who can't spell. I'll be adding to this, off and on, but I have other stories (my seaQuest AUs, my Master crossovers, my romance I hope to sell to Harlequin, etc.) that do take priority over trying to reinforce correct English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you were never taught it in school, it's not your fault, but you can learn. According to the website's guidelines, everyone here must be at least junior high age, yet I continually see grade-school level errors.