And that’s finale!
This is the same candidate we highlighted — twice — in our Sept. 4 Grammar Police post. The operative word is thing. “The last thing you and your family need is higher taxes.” Political consultants: Your candidate or PAC is paying you a lot of money. These mailings have all of a half dozen sentences. How hard is it to run them past an editor?
Remember remember the rule rule about redundancies redundancies: If you can remove one of the words and the sentence still makes sense, remove it! Also, instead of “50 percent,” would it kill you to just say “half?”And while it’s not grammatically wrong, we prefer “over” for spatial (“over the city”), and “more” for measurement. One more: “half of” is wordy. You just can say, “half.” And since we’re talking about teens, plural, it needs to be schools. So, dear consultant: we’ve just done your work for you and offer a grammatically correct, tight sentence with lots of punch: “More than half our teens fear shootings are possible at their schools.” Bam!
Help! Help! He’s on fire!
This likely was written in a hurry, so we will give the writer some slack. But just as a learning moment: “The hospital” suggests there’s just one and everyone knows which one That’s especially bad because the writer originally said “hospitals,” plural. “To the hospital” is a nice phrase for Grandma to use. Not writers.
Dr. Baruch Kahana
This is a chronic goof. Veteran’s Day suggests it’s a day for one veteran. Veterans’ Day is wrong as well. It’s Veterans Day. A day to honor veterans. Don’t take our word for it.
We’ll make this photo this week’s finale.
And we go to the video archives for Segment 30: Politically Incorrect. https://youtu.be/dA_vKxul-xo
Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Longtime reader Dr. Baruch Kahana asks the difference between increase and uptick.
The Rules Committee says: “Uptick is an increase, especially a small or incremental one.”Milt Baker, Commander, U.S. Navy (retired), brings the following motion. He says that in our Nov. 6 column, when we wrote that the Associated Press stylebook considers all watercraft “boats,” but has different names for them depending on design and size (boat vs. ship.)
”You may be in sync with the AP Stylebook there, but you're out of step with the maritime world. As a lifelong sailor and a career U.S. Navy officer who has spent virtually all his life in, on or around the water, I'm here to tell you that in the maritime world a huge distinction is drawn between ships and boats, and one cannot correctly call a ship a boat any more than one can correctly call a boat a ship. In the maritime world confusing the two, or not drawing a distinction, is a colossal faux pas. How to make the distinction or tell the difference? The simple rule is that a boat can be carried aboard a ship. That's not 100% correct or definitive, but it's a good practical test for anyone writing for a maritime audience. Submarines are a different case. By tradition, submarines are called boats, no matter their size.”
The Rules Committee says: “Have to stick to the Stylebook: ‘A boat is a watercraft of any size but generally is used to indicate a small craft. A ship is a large, seagoing vessel. The word boat is used, however, in some words that apply to large craft: ferryboat, PT boat.’”
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!