These goofs are spooky!
Dave Barak
Sounds scary in my book!
Lynn Kalber
This is to much.
Nope. How about this: “Black parents opting to homeschool their kids.” (PS: The dictionary says “homeschool” is OK as one word.)
We’ve beaten up TV for this, but newspapers used to do it all the time, and sometimes they still do. In an effort to put everything in present tense, these editors have created headlines that suggest the newspaper can tell the future. (Also, in the case of the reverend, the headline was wrong. He died Friday!) In these cases, if you just remove the day, the headline is OK. PS: The only place “dies Thursday” would work is in advance of an execution. Even then, you’d have to say, “is set to die,” since those often are delayed or even called off.
Sports networks like to provide a steady stream of live game updates. They will give the inning or period or half or quarter and, if applicable, how much time is left. Often a score will say “final,'“ indicating the game is over. And every once in a while, it will say something such as, “final Friday.” Well. If the game was Friday, and today’s Saturday, we’re guessing that not only is it final, but everyone has gone home and the stadium has been dark and locked up for about 24 hours. Look at the second example. These games have been “final” for weeks! How about we just omit “final?”
And we go to the video archives for Segment 29: Bad ads. https://youtu.be/K2z8qhvVXVM
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
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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 your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!