Open Saseme!

Will the apostrophe gremlin’s never stop?

A bad apostrophe, a homophone and a comma splice. Three for one! Grammar is at it’s all time low and good writing is worth more then you think, call me. (Plus, it should be “all-time.”)

Newspaper copy desks have a tough job. Editors have to write headlines that fit in an unnatural space and also make sense. Sometimes they, well, fall short. We had to look at this one for a while to figure out what it was saying. The story said a proposal by Poland for restitution to victims of the Holocaust made it too hard for them to reclaim property seized by the Nazis, and the United States government and Jewish groups were outraged. Hard to fit all that in two columns and three rows (“decks” in newspaper lingo). It didn't help that "limits," which really needed to go next to "restitution," went to the third line. Changing "outrage" to "outrages" would have done the trick, but it didn't fit. How about:

Poland’s bid to limit
Holocaust restitution
outrages US, Jews

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!