I think it's just this judge's personal bugbear. <g> We all have them; we all have something that just drives us absolutely crazy when we're editing. For me it's this:
"Yes, I think so-why not?"
For me, there are few things more pointless than using a dash and not putting spaces either side of it. The point of a dash is to separate out the text. If you use it as above, without dashes, there is no space. Which makes it completely redundant....
/me hauls in a deep breath, stops hyperventilating, and slides the soapbox back under the desk.
Whether the judge's comment is a valid grammatical correction is another thing entirely and I'd have to disagree with the correction, myself.
'Eyes wandered' is used not just in a ton of fanfic I've read over the years, but published novels too. A very, very common expression and imo perfectly acceptable.
There are a ton of similar phrases that when you really examine them make no sense, but which are used so commonly, day to day, that they've become the norm anyway. I believe this falls into that category.
Besides...my eyes move. <g> Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, they can wander around a room.
LabRat
(who once read a hilarious Star Trek fanfic mocking all these expressions which sound so normal - until you put them under the microscope...)
