From the Grammar Police
Stop the presses!
Its amazing how a publication still doesnt know when its showing it's bad grammar!
We’ve covered this in the past. This literally means no billionaires are oligarchs. Clearly, some are. Should read: Not all billionaires are oligarchs.
Cliché alert! We have argued that nothing ever is wreaked except havoc, and havoc never arrives except by having been wreaked. Readers?
This suggests Celine is doing her first concert series since she did one in 2020 in Paris. Nope. Celine is doing her first concert series since 2020. She’s doing it in Paris. Clarity!
Our faith in good writing might be in its death throes.
We do not make light of tragedy. We do comment on bad writing.
We’ve seen this type of mistake before. The headline suggests Savannah Guthrie left “Today,” then her mother vanished, then she returned to “Today.”
This mess of misplaced modifiers literally says that this vice mayor was shot by her husband, that she slept with her dead body (PS dead is redundant) and that she denied knowing where she was.
NOTE: The “Horribly Wrong” team — comprising a semiretired reporter and copy editor — often has pointed out that, while not acceptable, newspapers now have many errors because declining readership and advertising has forced them to gut their proofreading teams. And said that, if you see a lot of mistakes, you can fix that by subscribing and advertising so papers can hire more.
And we go to the video archives! Click for Segment 7: More Lightning Bugs.
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
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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!