Last year, we spent a lot of time beating up on TV news. To be candid, the industry gives us a lot of material. So much that we had to create yet another segment.

1. "Officials were tight-lipped.”

How does that work? Do they actually stand in front of cameras with their lips tightly pressed? No. It’s a brutal cliché.

2. “The woman said the robber frightened her to death.”

She made an amazing recovery.

3. “The robbers shot the store owner as his family watched in horror.”

Brutal cliché.

4. “The community is in mourning.”

We'd like to think so. But how do you know? The Horribly Wrong team lives in a county with more than 1.5 million people and many communities. We’ll bet most didn’t even hear about the murder in question, and certainly aren’t mourning it. You can’t even say for sure that a neighborhood is in mourning unless you went door-to-door.

5. “The lawyer literally bled his clients dry.”

Don’t say “literally” unless you literally mean literally. Otherwise you’ve gone and hired an embalmer as your attorney.

6. “… brutal stabbing.”

When is a stabbing gentle? (Special thanks to Palm Beach Post alumnus Mitch McKenney)

7.  “…shots rang out.”

Like the bells of St. Mary’s.

8. “It was a recipe for disaster.”

Needs more salt.

9. “According to two sources close to the issue, the New York Times reports that the president knew…”

Do you need sources to learn what the Times reported? A street rack would have done the trick. The writer might have meant the Times was quoting two sources. Which would make this a misplaced modifier.

10.  “Two dolphins who beached themselves in the Florida Keys are recovering at a nearby marine lab.”

We covered this sausage-making in a February 2022 segment. TV feels it must put everything in present tense. So it doesn’t want to say the dolphins had been transported to a marine lab. That’s past tense. But here’s the problem. We don’t know if they’re recovering. Do we? Not everyone who goes to a hospital recovers, sad to say. In this case, it gets worse. People —including, presumably reporters — who live near the sea know that when a marine mammal beaches, it nearly always dies. And in fact, just minutes after reporting the dolphins were “recovering,” the anchor reported they had died.

11. “Police have many questions but few answers.”

You don’t say.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/7Hf1c_2g7PQ

Next time: Unforced errors

From the Mailbag: “We cant forget the improper use of apostrophe's. What's worse is that I see them being used inconsistently. For some reason, people cant make up there mind's - use apostrophe's for plural's or dont use apostrophes for plurals? I'm no master of the English language, but it can't be that hard to remember. (All error's, including this one, are intentional - I hope.)” — Dave Barak

Dave: Funny you should mention. Well be visitin’g misused apostrophe’s next week! Stay tune’d!

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!