Rule 5 Saturday - Valerie Cody

This week's lovely is Valerie, aka Val, Cody, author and model.

Valerie’s journey to fame kicked off when she made the decision to share her modeling and bikini photos on her own Instagram account, aptly named after herself. Her innate beauty and magnetic charisma swiftly won over the hearts of her audience, resulting in an impressive following of 306,000 devoted fans.

September 18, 2012, marked a significant milestone in Valerie’s career when she launched her eponymous YouTube channel. Setting herself apart from the conventional modeling route, she adopted a distinct approach by creating meditational videos aimed at motivating and uplifting her audience.

Valerie’s talents extended far beyond her social media fame, delving into the realm of literature. In 2019, she made her debut as an author with the release of her first book, “The Beauty Alchemist,” which forged a deeper connection with her dedicated followers. She later followed up with another book titled “Sugar Words,” a testament to her boundless creativity and unwavering passion for writing.

“Sir, a woman's preaching writing is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and links. The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Pre-Tax Double Scoop Edition and FMJRA 2.0: Kick ’em When They’re Down ready and awaiting your digital pleasure. Linked at The Right Way in the weekly Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama.

Not So Great Moments in Science

This Is What Happens When No One Proofreads an Academic Paper

By now we all know, or ought to know, that just because something is published in a peer-reviewed academic journal doesn’t mean it’s true. But we can at least assume it's been proofread, right?

Apparently not. A priceless gaffe, which has been making the rounds of academic Twitter this week, is Exhibit A.

The blooper was picked up by Retraction Watch, which contacted both the authors and the publisher for comment. The corresponding author told Retraction Watch the Gabor line “was added into the paper by a co-author during revision (after peer review),” and no one spotted it in the course of the final proofreading process. He apologized for the put-down, adding, “I would never condone this sentiment towards another person or their work.”

I hated it when that happened.

Found at Althouse.

I Agree, Kill the Apostrophe

It's time...

....I have referred to the apostrophe as the forgotten letter in English. It is an anomalous letter, because it absolutely never corresponds to a sound (I think, though see this post), but it is an obligatory part of the spelling of indefinitely many words (most obviously, all regular genitives and all negated and cliticized auxiliaries). The existence of a few older location names that lack the apostrophe means nothing about its prospects; it's as unimportant as the existence of a peculiar set of nouns that do not take the apostrophe in their genitives (the personal pronouns her, his, its, my, our, their, and your). What drives the error-hunters wild is that it not only gets missed where it was putatively needed, it also gets inserted where it is not allowed (recall the awful incident of the mistakenly apostrophed lunch bus that the BBC parked most insensitively under the windows of the Linguistics and English Language offices at my university). But there are no signs of it dying out. Rosen's suggestion that we are on any such path is totally off base...

It would improve my spelling.