Readers: During Eliot’s career, his commute was a half hour each way. That meant a lot of time listening to audiobooks. Sometimes Eliot would find himself at the “Friends of the Library” sales rack, where donated items are sold to raise money, and would grab some book he’d never heard of and take a chance on it. In the car, he’d pop it in, only to conclude in the first few minutes it was so bad he had to eject it and move on to something else.
Often the tipping point was an inexplicably basic error of geography, history or anatomy. Such errors are fact errors. Period. In Eliot’s Journalism 201 class at the University of Florida, a million years ago, a fact error drew an automatic F. And in the case of the bad audiobook, for Eliot, they disqualified it. Eject!
A few items are more a question of “style” (see our previous column.) “Better” rather than right or wrong. We, and others, believe good style makes for clearer writing.
Today: Geography.
1. Brooklyn, NY
We see this all the time. It’s wrong. Brooklyn, NY doesn’t exist. Using “xxx, NY” means that’s a city. Brooklyn is not a city. It’s part of New York City. So you can say, “the New York borough of Brooklyn,” Yes, we know it once was its own city. Get over it. Yes, we know the post office accepts it. For writing, it’s wrong.
2. Flushing, NY
This is even more wrong than Brooklyn. Flushing is a neighborhood of a borough of a city. It’s Flushing, Queens, New York, NY.
3. Long Island, NY
Brooklynletters.com
Long Island is not a city. It’s a 100-plus-mile island covered by two counties. It’s four if you include the New York boroughs of Brooklyn (Kings County) and Queens (Queens County), which geographically are attached, although most people don’t include them. Long Island has 13 towns, two cities, 97 villages, 173 hamlets, more than 120 public school districts and more than 900 taxing districts. You wouldn’t say, “Monterey Peninsula, Calif.,” or “Outer Banks, N.C.” You can say “New York’s Long Island” or “Woodmere, on Long Island.”
4. Ontario, Canada
This is OK, as long as you are willing to say, “Maryland, U.S.” Better to say, “Toronto, Canada,” Or, really, “Toronto, Ontario.”
5. The Vermont-Canada border
Wrong! It’s apples and oranges. One is a U.S. state and the other is a country. Say “the U.S.-Canada border” or "“the Vermont-Quebec border.”
6. The Florida-Georgia border
This one is style. But again, our motto is that consistency improves clarity. Our style: border, state line, county line, city limit. So: The U.S.-Mexico border. The Florida-Georgia state line. The Fulton-DeKalb county line. The Austin city limit.
7. The Marlins have 21 foreign players, three of those from Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is part of the United States!!! If you did not know this, you have to sit in the corner.
8. West Boca
City of Los Angeles
In southern California, more than two thirds of the area of Los Angeles County — a total of 2,653 square miles, an area bigger than Delaware — is unincorporated. It’s not in any city. Any one of the some 1 million people living there might say he lives in Los Angeles, but in the interest of accuracy, you shouldn’t. This is more of an issue here in Southeast Florida, where municipalities line the coast and interior areas are just open parts of various counties. Lazy reporters will call the area west of a city “west.” As in “West Boca.” The problem with that is that, of course, there already is a West Boca. It’s the west side of the city of Boca Raton. Once you cross the street, you are WEST OF BOCA RATON. We like to say, “New Mexico is not in West Texas. It’s west of Texas. And West Virginia is not western Virginia. Just ask ‘em.”
9. The Cowboys stadium is in Dallas. Arlington National Cemetery is in Washington.
Wrong. Do your homework! The Cowboys stadium is in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. And dealing with “Arlington” for the cemetery near Washington is a good way to start another Civil War. It might be just across the river, but it’s in Virginia. Lazy writers will just presume. Don’t. Look it up.
10. England is the United Kingdom.
Geology.com
England is PART OF the United Kingdom, which consists of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
11. Iran is the most dangerous Muslim country in the Arab world.
Iran is Muslim, but it’s not Arab. Some areas are Arab but not Muslim. People are OK with dozens of Christian denominations, but presume all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims are Arabs and everyone in the Middle East is both. Wrong.
12. France has an embassy in Atlanta.
An embassy is a foreign country’s primary institution. It almost always is in the capital. If a foreign country has regional institutions, they are called consulates
13. Everglades. Rockies. Hawaii Volcanoes.
Careful. Parts of the Everglades, parts of the Rockies, and some of Hawaii’s volcanoes are outside the national parks.
14. The Gulfstream
The ocean current is two words.
15. The Sunshine State, the River of Grass, the Big Apple, Empire State, the Nation’s Capital, Music City, the Big Easy, Sin City.
You can use each of these nicknames once. Once. After that, it’s a cliché.
Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/r3bSrxAE3MU
Next time: Bad history
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!