All hale Norm Crosby!
In May 2022, we honored comedian Norm Crosby, king of the malaprop. That’s a word that mistakenly is used in place of one that sounds similar. Norm’s gone, but we still celibate him!
The fish is koi.
In this case, the person quoted wanted to say “mitigating.” And shame on the lazy reporter.
Palpable means you can feel it. Palatable means it is OK to eat.
This error message popped up on a “word processing” program. (Talk about corporate speak!!!) The dictionary says to deprecate is to belittle or show disapproval.
To “beg the question” is a logical fallacy where an argument assumes its conclusion as a premise. This writer tried to use a different version of the idiom that many scholars consider incorrect usage: "Strongly prompt the question." But he said: beg to question.
Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
After we recently “reran” Segment 16: The Maligned, Comma, from August 2021, PETITIONERS Robert Merlin and Dr. Baruch Kahana, longtime readers and occasional contributors, challenged the sentence, “But you have to use it right! Otherwise you create a grammatical mess.” They argue it should be, “But you have to use it correctly.”
THE RULES COMMITTEE (Lou Ann) OPINES: “We weren’t as precise, or as elegant, as we could have been, but we weren’t wrong.” DEFERRED FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION.
PETITIONER Joel Engelhardt, a longtime reader and a former colleague of the Horribly Wrong team, submits: “I have found in editing the work of a wide variety of writers, many have a slavish devotion to an unnecessary comma in a list or series that is otherwise known as the Oxford comma... Are there instances where you condone the use of the Oxford comma? How do you explain to people who believe deeply in its importance that it is simply clutter?”
THE RULES COMMITTEE OPINES: “As journalists yoked to the AP Stylebook, we follow the rules, such as they are: ‘Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before the conjunction in most simple series.’ But AP also acknowledges that the rule is not hard and fast. ‘Include a final comma in a simple series if omitting it could make the meaning unclear.’” DEFERRED FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION.
And we go to the video archives for Segment 86: Without Fear or Favor.
Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong" features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police.” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, menus, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we can credit you properly. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com
Haven’t signed up for our newsletter yet? Do it now! And tell your friends!
NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!