Grammar Police Weather Edition!
Readers: Even as the Horribly Wrong team makes light of grammar goofs related to recent weather events, we in no way make light of the resulting heartbreak, especially in our home state of Florida. Please consider a donation to the American Red Cross or some other worthy charity you have verified as legitimate.
There’s no there there! How about “Their homes”?
We’ve said we give some slack for typos, especially during critical events. But this ad appeared on the front page of a newspaper! Didn’t anyone notice?
It’s nasty out there. But that’s no excuse for messing up “lay/lie.” The house lies in the mud. And that’s no lie.
Peter King
Make sure their dogs are free of flees!
Again: We give folks slack. The thing is, an hour later, this graphic still hadn’t been fixed. Of course, it should be “1.2M+” or “1.2mm+” or “1.2 million plus.” Not “1.2+.” That’s one customer and two-tenths of another. (NOTE: Reporters often misstate power outages. When the power company says 1.2 million customers are without power, they mean 1.2 million accounts, which of course is more than 1.2 million people. If you know they all are residential accounts, you can say, “1.2 million households.”)
In the past, we’ve covered the idea of grammatical optical illusions. Your eyes want you to see “debris” as plural. It’s not. It’s one of those strange “non-count” words, similar to “wreckage.” So this headline should read that debris “washes ashore.”
In weather terms, the only thing that can touch down is an actual tornado. Not a possible tornado. If you’re not yet sure it was a tornado, say something such as: “What might have been a tornado caused damage...” Also, according to weather.com, “…wind circulation must extend all the way to the ground before it can officially qualify as a tornado in progress. Therefore, saying that a ‘tornado touched down’ is redundant.”
And we go to the video archives for Segment 28: Misplaced Modifiers. https://youtu.be/9VVUqN8G5m8
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 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!