A whale of a collection of modifiers misplaced
How about “man who sat on couch…” What a difference a word makes.
Actually, it was Lincoln who was attending the play when Booth snuck in to the theater to shoot him.
Officials at the orphanage already had met Castro. “Laney asked officials for a meeting with Castro.”
Fighters did not oust Assad on Friday at Umayyad Square. People celebrated Friday at the square.
And, of course, this mangled morass of modifiers — and hurricane of hyperbole — literally says, “These joggers blew our freaking minds after the joggers wore our freaking minds for two weeks straight.” (PS: Not big on “freaking.”)
We’ve addressed this many times, going way back to April 2021. “Embattled” means girded for battle. The word you want is “beleaguered.”
We spoke in August 2024 about how “temporary” usually is redundant.
The world contains numerous heiresses.
The “Horribly Wrong” team acknowledges that expecting smartphone apps — many of them international — to follow basic rules of English grammar and honesty is like expecting you actually win money on them. But we also are going to challenge the statement that, of the 1-billion-plus earthlings over the age of 60, nearly eight in nine use this app!
And we go to the video archives for Segment 81: The Grammar Police Meet The Gazpacho Police.
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 can credit you properly. 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!