Segment 39: More Lightning Bugs

Natural History Museum of Utah

Readers: In a 2020 segment, we showed instances of writers failing to make the distinction between lightning and lightning bugs. They used words that weren’t quite right. Which means, of course, that they were wrong. Here are more examples:

1. Past and present military veterans receive free coffee all month.

What would constitute a past veteran?

2. On Saturday, alleged gunman Robert Powers stormed into the Tree of Life synagogue…

So he definitely stormed into the synagogue but he’s only an alleged gunman? How about: “Police say Robert Powers, armed with —-, stormed into the Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday.”

3. Most everyone loved Elvis.

Almost everyone loved Elvis.

4. I was nauseous from the nauseating fumes.

While usage has rendered “nauseous” acceptable for someone who feels sick, the "Horribly Wrong" team doesn't like it. Remember: Sometimes it's a question not of the wrong or right word, but the better word. "Nauseous" and "nauseating" really refer to something that makes you sick. If you are sick, say you are nauseated.

5. TV commercial: "Science projects for kids 0-16."
Church notice: "During services, we provide child care for children from birth to 8."

What exactly would be age 0? And is the church expecting babies to come to their care straight from the birth canal? Say "Science projects for kids up to 16." And, "child care for children up to 8."

6. Our train was late thanks to an obstacle on the track.

Say “thanks to” when you mean it. “Thanks to you, great voters, I’m now the mayor.” But ”Our train was late because of an obstacle on the track.”

7. The professor’s opinions do not represent the views of the university.

While we always are preaching “the fewer words, the better,” in this case, you need to add a word before “represent.” It’s “necessarily.” Otherwise you’re saying the university definitely disagrees with every single piece of opinion the professor ever has uttered. That’s extremely unlikely, and even if it’s the case, you don’t know that, do you?

8. An Army spokeswoman said the officer would be “assigned to duties commiserate to his rank and experience.”

It might be that the spokeswoman commiserated with the officer, but the word she wanted was “commensurate.”

9. “Jethro done gone swimming in the cement pond.”

The Beverly Hillbillies’ pool was made of concrete, not cement. Cement is the powder that, when mixed, becomes concrete.

10. The Dolphins agreed to trade Parker to the New England Patriots on Saturday.

This literally means the team decided at some previous date to trade the player, effective Saturday. But that’s not what happened. Move one word and the meaning becomes clear: “The Dolphins agreed Saturday to trade Parker to the New England Patriots.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/8vgBB189QNY

Next time: More clichés hitting you like a ton of bricks.

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Didn’t you get the memo?

We covered this in our August 2021 segment on the maligned comma. Correct: “Do not use if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant or while you are breastfeeding.”

We covered this in our February 2022 segment on bad ads. In this paragraph, two people are talking. The one in the first sentence is you. The one in the second sentence is the drug store. How does no one notice this? Correct: “Do you want to pick these up at XXX? We’ll call or text you…”"

We covered this in a March 2021 segment. “Beleaguered” means beset. “Embattled” does not. It means to be prepared for battle.

We’ve covered this before. The magic word is not “senators.” It’s “group.” “Group of senators reaches deal on…”

We’ve explained that tight writing sometimes is too tight, and morphs into lazy writing. We know where the massacre occurred. But where have these people gathered? In a church? An arena? And what if they were in San Antonio? (Bonus nit: “Community members” is news-speak and a cliché. It’s the same as “litter box filler.” Say “Uvalde residents” or just “people.” )

A February 2021 segment talked about writing as if you were paying by the word. And our April 2022 segment on “Elements of Style” quoted William Strunk’s gospel: “Avoid unnecessary words.” We cut this announcement in half. You don’t have to write for a living to be a good writer.

We will visit a similar goof in next week’s segment! This line is saying the player’s setback was Monday. It was weeks ago. Monday was the day he rejoined the team. Correct: “Point rejoined practice with the full team on Monday. He had skated on his own or with the Lightning’s extra players in the weeks since his setback.”

And we go to the video archives for Segment 20: Its not that hard. https://youtu.be/Pih1IvLnQJA

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 properly can credit you. 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!

SEGMENT 38: "Your stupid minds. Stupid! Stupid!!"

Amazon.com

Readers: In college, Eliot attended a Halloween triple-feature. Each “horror” film was more laughably bad than the one before it. The main feature blew his mind, as people said in the 1970s. It's been declared the greatest bad movie of all time. We speak of course about the one, the only, Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Among aficionados of camp, you don't even have to say the film's whole name. Plan 9 is enough. Eliot and his two sons, now grown, have viewed it so many times they use lines from it as running jokes. None more so than alien Eros (Eros? Really?) lecturing earthlings that they are victims of “your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!”

Perhaps you’ve seen the 1994 Johnny Depp movie Ed Wood, about the man behind Plan 9 and other so-bad-they're-hilarious cult classics such as Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster.

Do yourself a favor. Find the original Plan 9, available on streaming services for a small price or even for free. There's even a colorized version, which only enhances the bungling brilliance of Edward D. Wood Jr.

For purposes of this segment, we won't touch the errors of astronomy, physics and biology, or the mind-numbing plot, or the wooden acting, not to mention the crazy visual contradictions of day and night and short and tall, or the failed mouth-to-dialogue synchronizations, continuity errors, and more, too many to mention. And those flying saucers!

https://mst3k.fandom.com/

No, we won't cover any of that. “Horribly Wrong” is a feature on bad writing. So we'll deal just with the redundancies, oxymorons, and other lines of dialogue that proudly violate each of the rules we've featured in previous segments.

“Horribly Wrong” readers are welcome to vote on, and submit, their rankings of bad lines. We’ll post the results, as well as our picks, in a future segment. There are no wrong answers!

Many an essay on Wood has pointed out that he truly believed he was creating masterpieces, and did not comprehend how preposterously bad his films were. So the "Horribly Wrong" team laughs not at Ed but with him.

• CRISWELL: "We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.”

• WOMAN MOURNER: "First his wife, then he."

• JEFF: "I saw a flying saucer."
  PAULA: "A saucer? You mean the kind from up there?" 

  JEFF: "Yeah, or its counterpart."


• EDWARDS: “Well, they must have a reason for their visits.”
  ARMY GUY: “Visits? Well that would indicate visitors!”

• LT. HARPER: "One thing's sure. Inspector Clay is dead. Murdered. And somebody's responsible!"

• EDWARDS: “They attacked a town. A small town, I'll admit. But nevertheless a town of people."

• EROS: "It has taken you centuries to even grasp what we developed eons of your years ago."

• EDWARDS: "This is the most fantastic story I've ever heard.”
  JEFF: "And every word of it's true, too."
  EDWARDS: "That's the fantastic part of it."

• LT. HARPER: "Modern women..."
  EDWARDS: "Yeah, they’ve been that way all down through the ages."

• EDWARDS: "Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our Earth?"
  EROS: "Because of death. Because all you of Earth are idiots!"

• CRISWELL: "Perhaps on your way home, you will pass someone in the dark, and you will never know it. For they will be from outer space!"

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/kjUVA87ZLbY

Next time: More of “Close, but no cigar.”

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

On the menu

theastrolab.com

Another food product contaminated with an apostrophe! Time to call the health department? How about Stir-frys. Yep. Looks wrong. But it’s right.

Warning: objectionable material!

Well, yeah, the waiter said sheepishly. Should be “fried goat cheese balls.”
(Did you get the “sheepishly” pun?)

Redundant redundancy alert! “Publicly reveal” is the same as “reveal.”

Kara Egizi

Watch that apostrophe! There’s more than one economist here. It’s economists’. (Joke: Economists have successfully predicted eight of the last five recessions!)

Melanie Mena

OK. Everyone knows what the writer meant. But it looks dumb. Get it right! Let’s cure the world of misplaced modifiers. Please! The principal doesn’t own the campus. Correct: “Two loaded guns belonging to XXX Academy principal found on campus.”

We covered this hyphen goof in our May 8 section on sports. The hyphen substitutes for “to.” So this reads, “between June 6 to June 9.” You can omit “between.” Really. (P.S.: use a colon after “postmaster” rather than a comma.)

We’ve covered this as well, in our September 2021 segment. This headline says all school intruders are different. Clearly that’s not true. Some intruders are alike. Should be: “Not all school intruders are alike.”

And we go to the video for Segment 19: Everyone Still Doesn’t Like Grammar. https://youtu.be/EpaisXp1J0s

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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 37: More homophones

In recent segments, we told you about homophones, words that sound the same but have different meanings. We couldn’t get all the really horrid examples into one segment. Here’s more:

1. A symbol of Queen Elizabeth’s rein has been the many photos of her on horseback, reigns in hand.

A royal term is a reign. The things you use to steer horses are reins.

2. Drink “Ensure” to insure against brittle bones.

In this case, you have to use “ensure” twice. “Insure” isn’t colloquial; it deals strictly with the insurance industry.

3. The new faze of the moon didn’t phase her.

The phase didn’t faze.

4. He was weary of strangers and wary from having stayed awake all night.

He was wary of strangers and weary from being up all night. “Wary” means watchful. “Weary” means tired.

5. There’s one shocking death that ranks, for me, among the grizzliest (in a good way) in all movies.

This actually appeared in a national entertainment magazine. Unless a bear shot the guy, this was the grisliest.

6. I looked at the puppies and all I could say was “awe.”

You might have been in awe of the puppies, but you were saying, “aww.”

7. The nurse was a real trooper.

The term, for someone who overcomes obstacles, is spelled “trouper.” It’s a reference to show-business troupes whose members followed the edict, “the show must go on.” A trooper would be a soldier or a law enforcement officer.

8. The student poured over her textbook.

Nope. She pored over her textbook for hours, even after she accidentally poured coffee over it.

9. He was supposably a descendant of Napoleon. I didn’t believe it.

Wish we could say “supposably” isn’t a word. It is, but it has an obscure meaning and almost always is used wrong. It means “conceivably.” If you’re suggesting cynicism, you want “supposedly.”

10. Go outside and close the spiget. Go outside and close the spicket.

The outdoor faucet is a spigot.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/IbiDXmT8y8w

Next time: “Dead. Murdered. And somebody’s responsible!”

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Repeat Offenders

We addressed this last year and will address it every year, as a matter of respect. Memorial Day is not a happy day! It certainly is not an excuse to offer 15 percent off and remind customers about 20 percent discounts during happy hour. (This was an ad for a recreational marijuana shop.) It’s a day to remember our fallen military. If there is a day not to be happy, this is it! How about, "Have a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend." (And don’t say “Happy Good Friday” or “Happy Yom Kippur.” Those also are solemn commemorations.)

We’ll explain this once more. You’ve said someone definitely rammed a gate and definitely was killed by a cop. Then you called him a suspect. Of what is he suspected?? Say this: “Cop fatally shoots man police say rammed gate at Florida school.”

Lou Ann Frala

Another writer falls for this grammatical optical illusion. You’re thinking singing and you desperately want to say “chord.” But touch your throat and think rope or cable. It’s a vocal cord.

We acknowledge the difficulties when you’re using all uppercase. But grammar rules are grammar rules. No apostrophe here! You could do UFOS, but that doesn’t really work. Or you could be clever and still use all uppercase except for UFOs.

Keith Nelson

Here’s another bad comma assembly. Should be, “on foot, on a bike, or via horse-drawn carriage.” The rest is fine. Oh no! Wait! We missed one! The island is the size of a doormat?

Does this business get frequent flyer points for adding extraneous quote marks?

These guys made the opposite mistake. How about:
….you need to get this free report called “Six Strategies to Beat Inflation.”

Keith Nelson

Once again, as a courtesy, we will not identify the major TV network that made these goofs. We’ve said we cut some slack for typos unless someone should know better, or the mistake is so egregious you can’t understand how no one caught it. Gauging? How about gouging? And the second slide has two mistakes. When making one-third a caption, you do just 1/3. No rd. As for increaed, well, we don’t know what to say,

Keith Nelson

And we go to the video archives for Segment 18: Everyone Doesn’t Like Grammar. https://youtu.be/Qog48LhZdKU

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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 36: One word or two?

Readers: These pretty much are homophones. And just as wrong.

• “Layout” vs. “lay out.” You lay out a newspaper. When you’re done, you have a layout.

• Any time” vs. “anytime.” According to the webpage Thoughtco.com, "any time" means "at no particular time" or "any amount of time." As in: “I won’t have any time to finish.” But It must be two words when used with “at”: “violence could erupt at any time.” The single word “anytime” has more limited usage: ”We can leave anytime you’re ready.”  To remember when it can be used, substitute “whenever.”

• “Alright” vs. “all right.” According to grammarly.com, “alright” is a word society has butchered. Society eventually might force it on us, but for now it’s wrong.

 • “Awhile” vs. “a while.” According to Merriam-Webster, “'Awhile' is typically used to modify a verb: ‘I’m going to sit and read awhile.’ 'A while' is typically used after a preposition: ‘I’m going to read for a while longer.’”

• “Under way” vs. “underway.” According to grammarist.com, use “under way” in “The ship voyage is under way.” Use “underway” when it is an adjective preceding its noun (“The underway voyage was interrupted.”). The webpage says many publications have as their “style” (see our segment on style) to always use “underway.”

And from Columbia Journalism Review:

• “Everyday” vs. “every day.“ “Our everyday special is made in our kitchen every day.”  If you can substitute “ordinary,” use “everyday.”

• “Everyone “ vs. “every one.” “In the bags of potato chips I bought for everyone, every one was broken.” If you can substitute “each one,” use “every one.”

• “Onetime” vs. “one-time” or “one time.” “When he stole one time, he was a one-time thief; since he made a habit of it, but has since quit, he is a onetime thief.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/6fobNDldgjU

Next time: More of those pesky homophones.

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

The Rules Committee likes hats. Without apostrophes.

Reminder: “less’ for volume, “fewer” for units. Less pain, one fewer thing to ruin your plans.

OK. It’s a contentious subject. That’s no excuse for cowardly writing. This is the old double qualifier. The first sentence is correct. Not the second. “Suggests” already is a qualifier. You don’t need “could.” A better phrasing would be: “Draft opinion says court would overturn Roe v. Wade.” (PS: While “vs.” is OK for sporting events, the writing “style” for court cases is just “v.” with a period.)

Holy cow! A triple qualifier!
Let’s look at options:
“Most commercially insured patients pay as little as $0 copay.” Nope. Still two.
“Commercially insured patients may pay as little as $0 copay.” Still two.
Oh! How about, ”Commercially insured patients pay as little as $0 copay.” Well, heck. That did it.
Be brave!

Here’s yet another example of a company that decided to cut overhead by not hiring a proofreader. Or by downsizing punctuation. This ad has more mistakes than not! Probably should be, “Are you being non-renewed or having a significant rate increase? Call us today. Representing A-rated carriers throughout the state.” Anyway, we think that’s right. No way to insure.

The story says “I.” But the byline lists two writers. Huh?

People in rooms 458 to 481: Good night, and good luck.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 17: The Comma Splice. https://youtu.be/uRLzHIdMJjg

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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 35: Sports clichés, malaprops and chronic mistakes

Readers: We apologize in advance for beating up on sports writers. Many of our closest friends are sports writers. For years, Eliot’s dad wrote for, and later ran, the sports department at the old Miami News.

We understand how hard it is to write something clever and original when you’re the baseball writer, covering the second game of a three-game series in August between two last-place teams.

And, frankly, you are bombarded by athletes, coaches and fans who regularly throw around clichés or repeat errors, or bad grammar, or just dumb phrases. It’s no surprise that some of that rubs off on you.

Amazon.com

And don’t forget twisted phrases made legendary by people
such as baseball’s Yogi Berra. (“When you see a fork in the road, take it.”)

And we salute comedian Norm Crosby, the king of the malaprop, who died in November 2020. A malaprop is a word that mistakenly is used in place of one that sounds similar. Crosby did it for comedic effect. The New York Times cleverly opened his obituary with, “He spoke from his diagram and related many funny antidotes, often to a standing ovulation.” But we’re guessing many writers use malaprops out of ignorance.

Yogi Berra Museum

So avoid bad writing. Be brave!

1. The pitcher has been scuffling his last few games.

This horrible, horrible malaprop must have snuck into the country with the coronavirus! What the headline writer wanted to say is that the pitcher has been “struggling.” As in not doing so great. A “scuffle” is a fight, usually just shoving, between two guys at a bar.

2. Pushing and shoving

Pretty much redundant. A shove is a push that’s a little more forceful. If you’re talking about what happens in a baseball game after a pitcher throws at a batter’s head and players come running, “shoving” will do it.

3. Bench-clearing brawl

Not only is this a brutal cliché, it’s also wrong. If people are just pushing and shoving — or maybe just shoving — that’s not a brawl. To have a brawl, you need some serious punches thrown.

4. A walk-off homer

This one isn’t so much wrong as misplaced. In baseball, in case you don’t know, in the bottom of the ninth inning, if the score is tied or the home team is behind, it gets a last chance. If it then wins, it’s called a “walk-off.” But most fans presume the term refers to the winners. It doesn’t. It’s the visiting team that must walk off in defeat while the home team celebrates.

5. “They left it all on the field.”

All of it? Brutal cliché.

6. This offense is untracked.

Should be, ”On track.” Actually, they probably meant “off track.” Yes, announcers actually have said “untracked.”

7. ”Browns Cut Safety After Threatening To Kill Fans And Fight Reporters On Twitter.”

This actual tweet is a case of misplaced modifiers gone amok! So, the NFL football franchise threatened to kill fans. Then it threatened to fight reporters on Twitter. (Not sure how that works.) Then it fired one of its players. It takes real talent to jam so many grammatical mistakes into one sentence. Here’s what they meant: “Browns cut safety who threatened on Twitter to fight reporters and kill fans.” There. It now makes sense. And has one fewer word. And also is reordered so it ends on the punch line, killing fans.

8. Don Shula was an NFL head coach from 1963-95. He was in three Super Bowls between 1971-1973.

The hyphen stands for both “from" and "to.” So the "from" is redundant. Best way is to say Shula coached "from 1963 to 1995." Same thing with “between.” Say “He was in three Super Bowls between 1971 and 1973.”

9. The Red Sox clinched a win on the last play of the game. The White Sox clinched the playoffs on the last game of the season.    

Both are impossible. A team “clinches” when it puts itself in a position where it’s guaranteed a win/playoff berth before the game/regular season is over. You can’t clinch unless play remains. If you win the game on the last play, or get into the playoffs on the last play of the last game, you won.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/osJ3vufgx64

Next time: One word or two?

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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Baruch E. Kahana, M.D

Loyal readers know the “Horribly Wrong” team doesn’t identify offenders; our goal is not to shame but to teach. So we will not name the major, respected news outlet that apparently didn’t know the difference between a cue (a prompting) and a queue (a line of people.).

No. What authorities are investigating, primarily, is not the officer himself, but his killing of the man. Better: “Investigation underway into white officer’s killing of Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old black man.”

Are they saying. “We will not issue for some items,” or “We will not issue for any items?” Are you sure? Good writing is about clarity!

Whoops. You did it again. Puerto Rico still is part of the United States.

During a recent visit to a marvelously restored cinema, nature called, and we found ourselves in the room shown here. We had some time for contemplation. We took the opportunity to meditate over yet another case of rogue apostrophes. “Wait,” you say. “Perhaps in this case management meant it as a possessive: a room for a guy. A guy’s room,” But, of course, this is a room for all guys. Which would make it a guys’ room. Or, just “Guys.”

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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 34: Fun with Roget

Readers: By “Roget,” we are talking about Peter Mark Roget, who in 1852 first published one of a writer’s best friends: a thesaurus. That’s a book of synonyms. A collection of words that have the same meaning. A gathering of similar vocabulary terms. You get the idea. 

We writers and copy editors sometimes have lots of fun with synonyms. Today, we offer a list of some of the different ways to describe a fight. Let us know if we missed one!

Pretty much all of them are clichés, so we hope you never actually use them! We didn’t. One editor told Eliot that if he ever used “kerfuffle,” he’d be fired, sacked, terminated, dismissed. And immediately. At this point in time. On the spot. Now.

Senate.gov/New York Public Library

• Fight

• Spat

• Confrontation

• Scuffle

• Brouhaha

• To-do

• Brawl

• Fracas

• Melee

• Tussle

• Scrum

• Donnybrook

• Rumpus

• Contretemps

• Kerfuffle

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/8QDLqNscym8

Next time: Play ball.

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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

You slay me! But the correct word here is slain.

We discussed this use of unnecessary geographical verbiage in our January 2021 segment on redundancies. Anyone who sees this flyer likely already knows Davie is in Florida. Especially if they’re familiar with the place that’s 100 yards down the road. And unless you plan to write the garden shop a postcard, of what value is the ZIP code? Just say Davie! Really!

Here’s the redundancy rule again again. If you can delete one of the two words and the sentence still works, it’s redundant. Just say “26 bodies.” (Note: We have fun finding grammar goofs. We acknowledge our exercises seem silly in light of the horrors happening in Ukraine.)

We post the same mistake’s over and over and it seem’s its no use. Why do people want to use apostrophe’s when theres no need to do so? Its enough to make you tear out your hair in piece’s!

We’ve discussed this in the past as well. The operative number here isn’t six. It’s one. One child in six struggles with hunger. One in six children struggles with hunger.

Every time we see an outrageous misplaced modifier — a topic to which we devoted a segment in January 2022 — we just scratch our heads that no one at the source noticed what we saw instantly. You probably did so as well. But this banner stayed on the bottom of the screen for several minutes. Police are searching for suspects, but only after the cops killed six people and injured 12? We’re going to say that’s not what happened.

(PS: Look at panel to the right. When this network returned to the story an hour later, it clearly had realized the mistake because it used mostly the same sentence but reworked it.)

And we go to the video archives for Segment 16: That dang comma. https://youtu.be/BOMaOxR3y_0

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 33: Elements of Style

Readers: One of the bibles of writing is “Elements of Style,” a small but vital manual for simple, clean, powerful writing. It’s likely most of your writing colleagues have copies. Eliot owns three. The book was written by William Strunk Jr., professor of English at Cornell University. Its first edition topped out at just 33 pages. But each page is gold. Decades later, and after Strunk’s death, former student  E.B. White, who would become an essayist and novelist (''Stuart Little,'' ''Charlotte's Web'' ), revised the book. It has sold millions of copies, and versions are available online for the cost of lunch. 

Strunk’s first edition came out in 1918! That’s more than a century ago. Good advice for good writing is timeless.

Here are some of the book’s directives:

• “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary part.”

• “Do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite.''

• “Clarity, clarity, clarity… select a word whose meaning is clear.’’

• “Use the active voice. The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive: “I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.” This is much better than “My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me.”

•“Revise and rewrite.”

And:

•“We approach style in its broader meaning: style in the sense of what is distinguished and distinguishing:

“Times like these try men’s souls.”

“How trying it is to live in these times!”

“These are trying times for men’s souls.”

“Soulwise, these are trying times.”

Or:

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

Do these nuggets of advice sound familiar? It’s just what we’ve been saying in this blog. But now you heard it from Elements of Style. That’s pretty darn near gospel.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/ZnK3wcm9mmw

Next time: Using, utilizing, accessing, applying the thesaurus for fun, entertainment, amusement, diversion.

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Susan Salisbury

You’re listing a home for nearly $30 million! Why won’t you spend a few bucks on an editor?

The Intracoastal Waterway stretches some 3,000 miles from Boston to Key West and from the Florida Panhandle to the Mexican border. This is how it’s spelled: Intracoastal Waterway. With “Waterway.” And in capitals. It’s a waterway between barrier islands and the coast. “Intercoastal” would be from coast to coast. That would be Kansas. Or maybe the Pacific Ocean. These real estate folks added to their goof by later misspelling it “intercostal,” which is a medical term for the muscle between your ribs. Probably not what they meant.

As long as we have our hooks in this horrible paragraph, we note it contains many examples of mistakes we’ve pointed out in previous segments. Thanks for the shout-out! We’ve fixed it. You’ll have to do the work finding all the fixes. There are too many. But we did your editing for free! For further assistance, the real estate firm may contact the Horribly Wrong team.

Spectacular ocean-to-Intracoastal Waterway home on the coveted XXX block of XXX. Enjoy breathtaking sunrises on the ocean, and sunsets on the Intracoastal, right from your private property. The main house has an elevator, five bedrooms, 6-1/2 bathrooms and a two-car garage. The guest house has a full kitchen, one bedroom, one full bathroom and a one-car garage. All the windows are high-impact glass, and the roof was installed in 2018. The pool is on the ocean side, with stairs down to the beach. The Intracoastal side has its own beach area with a dock and a boat lift. This property is only minutes from the XXXX. That‘s why the water is so blue on the Intracoastal side. You will see manatees, porpoises and big sea turtles every day.

Omitting the hyphen (”debt-free”) and making runaway two words? The Rules Committee would be inclined to separately declare each a misdemeanor. But making both mistakes, in successive sentences, bumps this up to “conspiracy to write dumb.” The reader still can understand it. It just makes the company look dumb. As we said in our Feb. 13, 2022, “Bad ads” segment, an outfit’s refusal to take the few minutes required to write grammatically correct ads might provide customers insight on the quality of its product, or lack thereof. We’re just sayin’.

This goof is so glaring it should jump out at you like a jack-in-the-box. Phrases using “and” are grammatical shortcuts. Split one and you often see your mistake. This one should be, “My wife’s friend” and “My friend.” And in this case, you’ve stepped into a grammatical briar patch, so back out and try again: “A friend of my wife and myself booked us a table.” Yes, it looks wrong, but it’s not. “A friend of my wife” and “a friend of myself.” Not “a friend of I.” Under no circumstances would you ever, ever, ever, say “I’s.” You know that.

Reader’s: For some folk’s, improperly adding apostrophe’s to word’s is a way of life. (Bonus: Needs a comma after “Yorkers.”)

theastrolab.com

Again, readers here know what the caption writer meant, but that doesn’t exonerate. Twenty dollars doesn’t go far when meted out to 100 cars. That’s two dimes per vehicle. Correct: “The church gave $20 in gas to each of the first 100 motorists.”

“Rio Grande” means “big river.” So this says “Big River River.”

"MD,” in caps, for Maryland, works in the post office. But not here. Sounds like a bunch of doctors got blown up. Should it have been “Md.?” That’s awkward. How about “…in Maryland blast?”

Spellcheck programs come free with most writing software. They make a big red line when you misspell. Makes things really easy.

Scott Simmons

And we go to the video archives for Segment 15: If only, if only, if only. https://youtu.be/Q1S4j22bQPA

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 32: Foreign Phrases and Images

Germany Embassy, Washington, DC

Readers: On June 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy electrified residents of West Berlin with a speech outlining the West’s solidarity with nations trapped by the Soviet Union.

“All free men, wherever they may live,” he said, “are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’

Did JFK made a grammatical goof? Should he have said “Ich bin Berliner?

In German, a word becomes an adjective with the addition of “er” on the end. Thus, “Berliner” means “of Berlin,” making “ein Berliner” redundant. On top of that, there’s a pastry called a Berliner. It’s a type of jelly doughnut. So that would mean Kennedy said, “I’m a Berliner.” Like “I’m a pastry.” Imagine if Kennedy had addressed an audience in Copenhagen, and instead of “I am Danish,” had said, “I am a Danish.”

History.com argues the “ein” was linguistically required. and anyway, everyone in Berlin knew what JFK meant. And grammatically correct or not, the line was momentous.

Either way, the story is a cautionary tale about using foreign phrases when you write or speak. There are nuances to translation. Handle with care. Make sure you get it right. Google Translate usually does the trick, but not always. If possible, consult someone who’s fluent or at least conversational.

Goofs can be about more than just words.

“Hispanic” and “Latin” are not the same. Hispanic refers to people who speak Spanish or whose ancestors spoke Spanish. That includes Spain, the mother country in Europe. Latin/Latino/Latina/Latinx refer to people who are from Latin America — or whose ancestors were. Not all of them speak Spanish. Just go to Rio and you’ll see.

Those of us of a certain age know that the TV comedy “I Love Lucy” was historic in many ways. One of them was the idea of a woman with a Hispanic husband who had a less-than-perfect command of English as well as a thick foreign accent. In that regard, Lucy was groundbreaking. But the writers made a mess of things in an episode called “Be a Pal.”

Lucy decides Ricky is homesick for his native Cuba. Ricky comes home one day to find a burro and a man asleep in a sombrero. The apartment is festooned with hanging colored blankets and other accoutrements. These are stereotypes not of Cuba but of Mexico!

Later, Lucy emerges as the iconic singer Carmen Miranda, she of the fruit-laden hat. But Carmen Miranda was from Brazil, and the song, “Mamãe Eu Quero,” is in not Spanish, but Brazilian Portuguese! We live in South Florida. Portuguese is not Spanish.

This was the second “I Love Lucy” episode ever to air. It seems surprising Desi “Ricky” Arnaz would allow this, since he obviously knew better. Or perhaps it was a joke on Lucy getting it wrong. But the storyline doesn’t say that. It being the politically incorrect 1950s, the show’s writers could get away with such tone-deafness. Not today.

Florida Archives

On the subject: Hispanic surnames are a minefield. Many people in Hispanic cultures use their last name, followed by their mother’s family name. For example, Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega is Daniel Ortega de Saavedra. But his last name’s Ortega, and that’s what you would use on second reference. In olden times, royals would add to their surnames the region they ruled. That’s how everyone mistakenly writes the first name of Juan Ponce de Léon as Ponce, and his surname as DeLeon. His name is Juan Ponce (pronounced PON- say.) His family ruled the duchy of Léon.

And then there’s this fun exercise:

“Principal: This morning my daughter came home to say her teacher was discussing how Americans use foreign phrases without even knowing it. What kind of chutzpah is that? Who the heck is this prima donna? Does she think she has carte blanche? And in kindergarten! How do I know she's even bona fide? I don't need her going on ad nauseam about this. And en masse to the class no less! Don't think I am accepting this as a fait accompli. It's caveat emptor, as you know, and I'm not going to let this faux pas pass. If that's your school's modus operandi, you might just find yourself persona non grata. And don't forget; you're not doing this pro bono. Everything has a quid pro quo, and I'm not going to accept the status quo on this. And I’m not just being macho.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/fGW0hrWTatM

Next time: Elements of Style

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Repeat offenders: Read this column!

This is Eliot’s number one news bugaboo! Journalists — and police — have been getting it wrong for decades. A suspect is someone suspected of something. A suspect doesn’t rob a bank. A bank robber robs a bank. Later, an individual is identified as the person suspected of robbing a bank. Only then is he a suspect.

This headline doesn’t say people are suspected of attacking the base. It says they absolutely did attack. Then it calls them suspects? of what? They were suspected of something else before they stormed the base? Just say, “Authorities: Gunmen Storm Joint Base Andrews.” (It said later they were male.) Notice we cut out a word and tightened the headline.

Milt Baker

It’s possible the good doctor wanted to say it was excepting — leaving out — Saturday appointments. But we’re pretty sure of what he meant: That he’s accepting Saturday appointments. And a reminder about appointments from a February 2021 segment: Your visit to the doctor is not an appointment. It’s a visit. An appointment is something you mark in your calendar. Substitute “reservation” for “appointment” and you see how it doesn’t work.

We previously have acknowledged that we might already have lost this battle. Keep in mind that no one is stopping you from using incorrect writing. We’re just here to show you the right way. A pickup is a type of truck, so this is a redundancy, similar to “sedan car” or “yacht boat.” So in mentioning this tragedy, you just can say “Pickup crash kills 9.” Really.

This is full of redundant redundancies and cowardly writing. Can we assume a user is smart enough to know what happens if he presses the power button, so that won’t be an option? And it’s nice that they say, “Please,” but we never figured out this practice. You don’t want to push the button? Frankly, the TV maker doesn’t give a hoot. How about: “To turn the screen back on, press any button.” We just tightened 15 words to nine.

Again: “Less” for volume, “fewer” for items. So, “Less pain” and “fewer steroids.”

“Princess Bride” is one of the Horribly Wrong team’s favorite movies. But the mistakes made by this film website are, well, inconceivable! First, the writer turned two words into one and changed a boy home sick to a homesick boy. Then the writer invoked the misplaced modifier to make the grandfather home sick. Or homesick. Or the guy who killed Inigo Montoya’s father.

How about: “While a young boy is home sick in bed, his grandfather reads him the story…”

And we go to the video for Segment 14: More horror in the boardroom. https://youtu.be/hoFfKcfK-pI

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 31: Not generic!

Readers: Companies pay a lot of money to come up with brand names, and they guard them passionately. They know that if a trademarked product becomes a commonly used part of the lexicon, courts can void its proprietary status. See the list below, courtesy of La Salle University. None of these is generic! Not all facial tissue is Kleenex. 

• Band-Aid

• Brillo Pad

• ChapStick

• Clorox

• Coke

• Cool Whip

• Crisco

• Jacuzzi

• Kleenex

• Kool-Aid

• Styrofoam

• Tabasco sauce

• Tupperware

• Vaseline

• Ziploc bags

And the rules committee’s Lou Ann adds: “Also AstroTurf, Frisbee and, believe it or not, Bubble Wrap.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/UyB_PCbHBSs

Next time: Foreign phrases. ¡Cuidado! Mise en garde! Vorsicht!

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

Milt Baker

Sorry. “E” not included.

This was an official press release on the White House webpage. The dictionary says to announce is to "make a public and typically formal declaration about a fact, occurrence, or intention; 'he announced his retirement from football.'" Replace "announce" with "reveal" and you get "President Biden will reveal later today that he's nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson." To which you stand up and say, "You revealed it just now!"

You’ve forgotten the “only” rule already? This commercial suggests you don’t eat or sleep. All you do is get one body. Correct: “You get only one body.”

In this one caption, we find at least two goofs, both of which we’ve dealt with in previous segments. First, the awful cliché, “go missing.” You don’t go missing. People discover you are missing. The other mistake is one of apples and oranges. San Francisco is a city. Oregon is a great big state. Which part of Oregon? We don’t know. Maybe, “between San Francisco and the Oregon state line,” or “between San Francisco and central Oregon,” or “between northern California and central Oregon.” Also: “between” indicates “not including.” If you disappear between San Francisco and Honolulu, that means somewhere in the ocean. Not on Nob Hill or Diamondhead. If any of these incidents happened right in San Francisco, or in wherever the other end is, then “between” would be wrong. “From XX to XX” would be correct.

A boat anchor is an inanimate object and takes “that.” A television news anchor is a person and takes “who.”

Anna Kavanagh

Does Friday come with fries?

As longtime newspaper folks, the Horribly Wrong team laments that struggling newspapers have had to cut back on proofreaders. It’s possible this publication now is being assembled in another part of the country. But if you are writing headlines for the Fort Myers paper, you should know how to spell Fort Myers.

And we go the video archives for Segment 13: Horror in the boardroom. https://youtu.be/-R3ooeAcsSI

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

Segment 30: Politically incorrect

WARNING: Some readers might find this segment offensive.

Readers: This segment shouldn’t even be necessary. You should know better. These words and phrases rightly have been tagged as offensive, or at least tone-deaf, so don’t use them! Especially in the company of people who belong to any of these groups. And certainly not in your writing.

•  Retarded. Also a mental “vegetable.” Also “brain dead,” unless an attending doctor has used the specific medical term.

•  Deaf and dumb. Also “deaf mute.”

•  Crippled. Also “deformed,” “lame,” or “an invalid.”

•  Dwarf, midget.

•  Crazy. Wacko. Nut. Psycho.

Stanford University

•  Colored. Also Uncle Tom, for a Black person who’s subservient to whites. Also “Oreo,” a term some Blacks use for someone they say acts as if Black on the outside and white on the inside.

•  Oriental. Also “Chinaman,” “Jap,” or “Chink.” As if we needed to tell you.

•  Indian (for Native Americans). Also Redskin (finally!). Also warpath, squaw, etc. And be careful lumping together all Native American groups. In North America alone, they can be as ethnically diverse as people from England and Turkey. And don’t use “tribe” in this context unless the group does. Most prefer “nation.”

•  Canuck (Offensive as a generic for a Canadian. But OK for the National Hockey League team.)

•  Don’t call someone a Haitian or a Romanian or a Pakistani if they moved to the United States years ago, especially if they are U.S. citizens. “Haitian American” would be OK only if relevant. Otherwise they’re just an American. Just like you. 

•  Hillbilly. Also redneck. Also WASP for a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Also “Florida cracker,” which is, analogous to “hillbilly,” although some use the term proudly.

•  Fireman, lawman, congressman, chairman, spokesman. Use only if you are sure they’re all males. Some use just “chair.” Don’t use “chairperson” etc. because — let’s face it — no one ever uses that term except when it’s a woman. Don’t be a cowardly writer!

•  Fag or queer. (Note: Some LGBTQ groups have appropriated “queer” as a term of pride, the way some Blacks use the N-word.)

•  “Jesus Christ!” Also “Christ Almighty!” “For Christ’s sake!” And, for the love of God, never say, “Jesus F**ing Christ.” Also, don’t say, “For the love of God.” All offensive. Or even, “Oh my god,” which is more a cliché.

•  Gypsy. Don’t use for the ethnic group, whose members prefer Romany, and don’t use as a colloquial for a nomad.

• AD, BC, Old Testament: The Associated Press stylebook says AD is acceptable for anno Domini: “in the year of the Lord,” and B.C. is acceptable in all references to the period “before Christ.” We’ve said many times that “Horribly Wrong” defers to AP. But we also counsel you to know your audience. Non-Christians aren’t comfortable with A.D. or B.C. because, with all respect, it’s not their lord. Jews will substitute “CE” for “Christian Era” or “BCE” for “Before Christian Era,” though non-Jewish audiences will be clueless about the acronyms. Also, while AP is OK with “Old Testament,” keep in mind that it presumes a “New Testament,” which many non-Christians don’t recognize.

Confused? Unsure? As the Horribly Wrong team says, you always can “write around it.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/dA_vKxul-xo

Next time: Hand me a Kleenex!

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!

From the Grammar Police

“Between” is a demanding word. You can’t be between one thing. Since you never will get more than one second shot, we ask: The time between the second shot and….what? We suspect they meant, “time between first and second COVID shots…” Then they repeat the mistake.

The Horribly Wrong team calls this a grammatical optical illusion. Your eye and brain want “couple” to be plural. A team or a school or a company sounds like it should be plural, but like those examples, couple is singular. So the couple “helps” foster kids. Good for them. (That sentence is OK, because we no longer are modifying “couple.”) Also found in a national newspaper: "None of us is." Should it be "None of us are?" No. "None" essentially is a contraction of "no one," and when you say "No one of us is," the answer is clear. But, the Rules Committee’s Lou Ann notes, “The language evolves.” She says some corners have ruled phrases such as “couple help” and “none are” as acceptable. The Horribly Wrong team will not. NOTE: Our British cousins violate this as a rule, as in “Arsenal won their match one-nil.” Another cause of the American Revolution. Look it up.

Susan Salisbury

We don’t take pleasure in calling out our friends in local TV news. But as we’ve said, they make it too easy. Four grammar mistakes in three lines! First, the headline is a classic misplaced modifier that suggests the parents, not the child, were forced to live in a garage. Then, the redundant “13-year-old teen.” Then, teenagers’ instead of teenager’s. And, of course, it’s the child who was adopted; the arrestees are the adoptive parents. And a bonus: You’re not arrested for something. The last sentence gets it right. Whew! Did we miss anything?

This place probably makes great pizza with the money it saves on writers. Where to start? For one thing, the place must have sold all its punctuation marks to pay for pepperoni. How about, as with good pizza, we start from scratch? “America’s first pizzeria, Lombardi’s, opened in 1905 in New York. Let’s celebrate tonight at (name). Two dollars off any pizza!”

You go, Nathan Chen! Many, many eyes are on you. But not all. Really. Readers: Are we being too exacting? Should we sometimes allow hyperbole? The Horribly Wrong team says no, but let’s discuss.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 12: Even newspapers goof. https://youtu.be/h62Bvtfphzo

From the mailbag:

Dr. Baruch Kahana, Miami Beach, posed two questions to the Rules Committee (edited for space):

1. “The other day I read: ‘A TD Bank was evacuated Wednesday after a robbery suspect barricaded their self inside the bathroom.’ Are gender-based pronouns — he, she, etc. — no longer kosher? Also: I recently encountered the phrase ‘pregnant person’. I’ve delivered a number of babies in my day, and each of those babies came out of a woman.” Response: English is cursed with a lack of a gender-neutral pronoun. If the police didn’t specify a sex, you can write, “A TD Bank was evacuated Wednesday after a robbery suspect barricaded himself or herself in a bathroom.” That’s not good. Our policy always has been, “Write around it.” So: “A TD Bank was evacuated, police said, after a person robbed it and refused to leave a restroom.” (Notice we got around the horrid word “suspect” and also accurately described the loo, which did not have a bathtub.) As to the pregnant woman, it’s hard to argue the doctor’s point. He was there.

2. “I recently read: ‘Public assistance is needed to identify the people who robbed an ATM.’ Shouldn't that be ‘stole?’” Response: It should be “stole from.” The Rules Committee’s Lo Ann Frala says “robbed” and “stole” often are “used interchangeably and incorrectly. There are nuances and differences of legality.” She cites no less than the Canadian federal government’s “Writing Tips Plus: “Rob and steal once were exact synonyms, but in modern usage they differ. A thief will rob a place or person (of objects), but steal objects (from a place or person).” And from criminaldefenselawyer.com: “Robbery, like theft, involves taking someone's property without the owner's consent, but it has some elements that theft doesn't require. Robbery involves taking property from a person and using force, or the threat of force, to do it.”

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, 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 properly can credit you. 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!