From the Grammar Police

Grammar Police celebrate one year!

Redundant. Just say “recorded.” If not previously, when was it recorded?

Also redundant. If you prevent something, you prevent it before it happens. That’s the only time you can prevent it.

Why do person’s alway's make the same error’s, goof’s and mistake’s, especially in ad’s? It make’s us guy’s want to scratch our head’s. One more time: NO APOSTROPHE!

This came up when the same thing happened to former President Trump. By definition, a suspension is temporary. Say Twitter “shut down” or “closed” the account.

Forget for a moment whether the statement is true. Get rid of those comma splices! Also extraneous capitalizations. We’ll allow the partial sentences because this is an ad. So: “No one has died from medical marijuana. Zero. Not a single one.”

Amazing how a little punctuation changes everything. You are saying I respect my neighbors? How do you know?

The "Horribly Wrong" team originally was not going to post this one, since it might just have been a slip by a harried and overworked graphics operator on live TV. And this is a case where the misspelled word is itself a word, so any spell-check program would have missed it. However, we'd be curious to know if this person really thought this was how you spelled "rogue," rather than what was typed, which is a shade of red and a form of makeup. Also, we'd be curious to know if the error was fixed for subsequent broadcasts.

Scott Simmons

Misspelling “condominiums” is bad enough. What about no space between “and” and “local?” And “Residential communities” is redundant. Boy, these guys should get a refund from the lettering company! As with the “rouge” planet, we’d be inclined to give them a break, except we wonder how long the window has looked like this?

And we go the video archives for Segment 9: Bad TV.

From the mailbag: Sharon Abramson, a former Palm Beach Post colleague of both members of the “Horribly Wrong” team, drew our attention to our Dec. 12 segment, in which we pointed out an incorrect caption mentioning “a bouquet of flower” instead of “a bouquet of flowers.” Sharon rightly noted that “bouquet of flowers” is redundant anyway!

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!

Segment 26: NSFW

WE’RE STARTING OUR SECOND YEAR!

WARNING: Some readers might find this segment offensive.

Readers: As we mark one year of “Something Went Horribly Wrong,” we visit the acronym NSFW. It means “not suitable for work.” As in, “Don’t accidentally send that crass joke to your boss.” 

Our marketplace of ideas, via social media and other platforms, has shed its shackles of censorship, and now you are free to send and receive Facebook postings riddled not just with vile personal attacks but also foul language and pornography. Don’t you feel smarter now? Isn’t the world a better place?

When Eliot’s dad was managing editor of the old Miami News, he once rejected an applicant for a reporting job. The young man’s portfolio included a clip from his college newspaper in which he’d used a coarse word for poop. The applicant said, “Don’t you believe in free speech?” Dad said: “Yes, you have every right to use these words personally. But good writers don’t need them, and they disqualify good writing, so I have every right not to hire you.”

If you are writing a novel, there’s a time and place to introduce profanity, usually in dialogue, where you want people to talk like people really talk. Even then, make sure you use it only as much as you need it; don’t be gratuitous. When writing as the narrator, use it at your peril. It’s not that readers are innocents who will faint away because you used a bad word. It just that it makes the reader feel a little dirty. And, as Dad explained, makes the writer come off as lazy.

Many phrases have entered the lexicon but really shouldn’t have. Look at these. You probably use them all the time. Do you ever take a minute to consider what each literally means? Go ahead. Look on the internet if you have to. “Urban dictionary” is a good source. We’ll wait. Yes! Right! OMG! Now you know! Good. So just avoid using them.

Frankly, it makes us feel dirty just listing them.

• “My opponent sucks.”

• “My opponent doesn’t have the balls to respond.”

• “I will knock the crap out of my opponent.”

• “My opponent is full of B.S.”

• “My opponent is an S.O.B.”

* “My opponent is a bastard.”

• “My opponent is a schmuck.“ (Check the Yiddish dictionary; “schmuck” refers to a specific part of male anatomy.)

• “The Cubs kicked ass.”

• “My opponent is an a**hole.”

• “He’s a frigging idiot. He’s a freakin’ idiot.” (“Frigging “or “freaking” clearly is used in place of the “F-word.” What about “darn” and “heck?” Maybe “frigging” is OK? Discuss.)

• “We really screwed up, and our clients got screwed. You don’t like it? Screw you!”

• “You’re a douche bag.” (Look it up. Yuck!)

• “He’s a brown noser.” (Again, look it up. Eww!)

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/DZR4WGFEouY

Next time: Very, very, very

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!

From the Grammar Police

Time to take down the tree and clean up the kitchen. While you’re at it, clean up your grammar!

Lou Ann Frala

Grand Marnier liqueur and hollandaise sauce are interesting additions to any dish. Take a moment and spell them right. Or you might just get a visit from the Grand Mariner. Shiver me timbers!

How many “Floridas” do you need? Certainly not two. In fact, in this case, you don’t need any. Everyone who reads this ad knows Riviera Beach and knows it’s in Florida. And as we said in our January 2021 segment on redundancies, unless you plan to write the liquor store a postcard, do you really need a ZIP code? Also: If you are using the postal abbreviation “FL,” you do not need a period. But if you are abbreviating “Boulevard” to “Blvd.,” you do.

Lou Ann Frala

What a tough brake.

Forget the grinch. Here comes the comma splice again. You need a period after “closed.” And in the interest of tight writing, you can lose the :00 and just say the place opens at 9, right? Plus, why do you need quotation marks?

Add an apostrophe. It’s so easy, even a child could do it. And make up your Mind about which words you Capitalize and where you Put punctuation.,:?

This is something we’ll address in depth in a future segment. It’s a double qualifier. Democrats either know for a fact these things may harm them, or they fear these things will harm them. Extra qualifiers are a form of redundancy — and a form of cowardly writing.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 8: Clichés. https://youtu.be/ABoi9z0N_aY

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!

Segment 25: Disqualifiers, Part Three: Anatomy

healthfixit.com

Readers: You don’t have to be a doctor to write about the human body. But don’t make stupid mistakes.

One we see every day is “stomach.” Almost every reference to it in literature and news reports is wrong!

Your stomach is in your chest, just above the centerline of your torso. It’s next to your liver and just below your lungs and heart. And yet time and time again, people point to the area around the belly button and call it the stomach. Punched in the stomach. Shot in the stomach. Stomach ache. Wrong, wrong, wrong. That area comprises your intestines. OK. You don’t want to say that. But say “abdomen” or “belly” or “torso.” Don’t say stomach. Also, why do you say someone was lying on his stomach? He was lying on all his other organs as well. Say he was lying on his belly. Or his chest.

Also, if you are writing fiction, you have to decide whether you want to deal in medical fantasy, or be accurate. If the latter, get it right or it becomes a disqualifier.

How many novels and movies showed a man taking a 2-by-4 to the head, or a punch to the chin, and going down like a carp, only to come to 15 minutes later, rubbing his noggin or jaw and saying, “What happened?” Then standing and winning a shootout? In reality, either of those attacks would have caused serious or even fatal injuries. 

And while we’re on the subject of shooting, if you ever get a chance, and you have the stomach (see above) for it, look at actual emergency room photos of a bullet wound. In the movies, a guy gets it in the gut (not stomach), and no blood or gore spurts out. Also, guys get shot and keep fighting. Try it sometime.

If you are going for farce, fine. If you are trying to be medically accurate, don’t insult the reader.

20th Century Fox

Some works do the whole thing for farce, so you let it go. None is more famous, or infamous, than “Home Alone.” After the movie came out, an organization of emergency room physicians listed the various attacks 8-year-old Kevin inflicted on the two hapless burglars, and explained what the medical impact would be in real life. Here’s a partial list:

•Iron to face: Probable concussion. Possible loss of vision. Possible fracture of base of skull.

•Red-hot doorknob: Second-degree burns.

•Partly-filled paint bucket to face: Concussion, broken nose, fractured skull.

•Crowbar to chest: Cracked ribs, potential internal bleeding and damaged lung.

•Flamethrower to head: Possibly fatal.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/mGbzbheMs0E

Next time: Not suitable for work

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!

From the Grammar Police

Editors, editors, editors!

At least they spelled Omicron right!

We will say it again: A suspect doesn’t shoot someone! A shooter does. When they catch John Doe, he is the man suspected of being the shooter. He’s the suspect. Not to mention that in this case it’s redundant. Just say a ranger was shot. Period. It’s not like you had a lot of options. Shot by a moose. Shot by an SUV. Shot by a rock. C’mon.

Journalists for whom English isn’t the first language should get a break. But if that’s the case here, that means this caption passed through several American editors before it ended up in our local newspaper with two big errors. Should be “A bouquet of flowers lies on the tomb of…”

Amy J Volkers

People who bet are bettors.

We’ll say it again: Editors shouldn’t make these mistakes. But because fewer people subscribe to, or advertise in, newspapers, they can’t afford as many editors. Want to see fewer goofs? Support your local newspaper! (You should anyway; it’s your only comprehensive source of local news!)

And we go to the video archives for Segment 7: More Lightning Bugs. https://youtu.be/y_fMjkAs1i4

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!

Segment 24: Disqualifiers, Part Two: History

Readers: Our last column mentioned goofs of geography. Today we tackle history, Eliot’s favorite subject and one that’s regularly used incorrectly in writing.

In our previous segment, Eliot mentioned giving up on bad audiobooks after they made a glaring goof. In one of those, the protagonist was a law student who was asked one day by his teacher about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in 1918. Wrong! That’s the year the war ended. The archduke was shot in 1914. With the availability of the internet, an author’s failure to take the time to double-check such basic facts is a grievous sin. And a disqualifier.

As Eliot toiled on his Civil War novel, Peace River, he fretted constantly about mistakes he inadvertently might be inserting. Historical fiction is a real minefield, and in no arena is this more profound than the Civil War. America is rife with Civil War “nerds” who gleefully will point out to a writer that a soldier’s sleeve should have had two stripes, not three. That that model of rifle hadn’t yet been created. Or that those tracks would have been on the other side of the river. 

blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu

Sometimes, you are a victim of the Rumsfeld Rule. That’s former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Iraq War-era edict that “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Once, Eliot was in a writer’s group when a member gave him the bad news that he’d identified a character as Czechoslovakian, when that nation didn’t exist in the 1860s. Yikes! 

Also: A note about Wikipedia. If you want to use it as a primary source, that’s your call. Newspapers don’t. The Horribly Wrong team won’t. It’s not that Wikipedia lies. It’s just that it’s an encyclopedia by committee, and prone to honest mistakes. What you can do is go to the bottom of the entry where it lists sources and go to those sources yourself. If you want to compare your local college’s student population to that of the University of Michigan, do yourself a favor. Just go to the webpage of the University of Michigan.

Bibliothèque nationale de France

One final anecdote: Thomas de Mahy, Marquis de Favras, was sentenced to death in 1790 after being accused of trying to rescue the royal family during the French Revolution. Upon reading his death warrant, Favras’ only remark was, “I see that you have made three spelling mistakes.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/HzAwRcjI53w

Next time: Bad Anatomy

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!

From the Grammar Police

Oh, those leftovers!

The turkey was as dry as a dessert!

Susan Salisbury

We suspect they meant “record-breaking.” But we do love our breading! Especially during the most wonderful time of the year.

We’ve covered this before. It might be Eliot’s number one repeat offense. There’s not a manhunt for a suspect. There’s a manhunt for a shooter. When they arrest John Doe, he’ll be the man suspected of being the shooter. The suspect. And by the way, should we outlaw “manhunt” as not gender-neutral? Discuss.

Same media outlet. Same week. Same incidents. And same mistake! Lots of robberies but one wave and one plague. A wave of robberies “plagues stores.” A string “leads California investigators to…”

Iconic is an absolute! Like pregnant. You can’t be more iconic.

Art Fyvolent

How could a discovery be anything but accidental?

Susan Salisbury

An obituary is the last thing that will be written about someone. You don’t want to see grammar or spelling errors.

CNN

We always give cops a break, since they don’t have to be great writers. But this one's a doozy. Under what circumstances would someone consent to being run over?

A longtime associate of the Horribly Wrong Team suggested that every once in a while we show where someone got it right! “Electric-car” and “long-simmering” are used correctly, as are “Morgan’s,” “bank’s,” and “Tesla’s.” And it’s not “CEO’s!”

And we go to the video archives for Segment 6: Lightning Bugs. https://youtu.be/JGjKpRcB6aU

Whoops: During the video portion of the Nov. 21 segment, on geography, Eliot made the mistake of extemporizing, and made a history goof! He said England was America’s oldest ally. Even if you don’t know nothin’ bout history (next week’s segment), you probably, by now, have seen Hamilton, so you know our oldest ally! Nous nous excusons auprès de nos amis français.

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!

Segment 23: Disqualifiers, Part One: Geography

Readers: During Eliot’s career, his commute was a half hour each way. That meant a lot of time listening to audiobooks. Sometimes Eliot would find himself at the “Friends of the Library” sales rack, where donated items are sold to raise money, and would grab some book he’d never heard of and take a chance on it. In the car, he’d pop it in, only to conclude in the first few minutes it was so bad he had to eject it and move on to something else. 

Often the tipping point was an inexplicably basic error of geography, history or anatomy. Such errors are fact errors. Period. In Eliot’s Journalism 201 class at the University of Florida, a million years ago, a fact error drew an automatic F. And in the case of the bad audiobook, for Eliot, they disqualified it. Eject!

A few items are more a question of “style” (see our previous column.) “Better” rather than right or wrong. We, and others, believe good style makes for clearer writing.  

Today: Geography. 

1. Brooklyn, NY

We see this all the time. It’s wrong. Brooklyn, NY doesn’t exist. Using “xxx, NY” means that’s a city. Brooklyn is not a city. It’s part of New York City. So you can say, “the New York borough of Brooklyn,” Yes, we know it once was its own city. Get over it. Yes, we know the post office accepts it. For writing, it’s wrong.

2. Flushing, NY

This is even more wrong than Brooklyn. Flushing is a neighborhood of a borough of a city. It’s Flushing, Queens, New York, NY.

3. Long Island, NY

Brooklynletters.com

Long Island is not a city. It’s a 100-plus-mile island covered by two counties. It’s four if you include the New York boroughs of Brooklyn (Kings County) and Queens (Queens County), which geographically are attached, although most people don’t include them. Long Island has 13 towns, two cities, 97 villages, 173 hamlets, more than 120 public school districts and more than 900 taxing districts. You wouldn’t say, “Monterey Peninsula, Calif.,” or “Outer Banks, N.C.” You can say “New York’s Long Island” or “Woodmere, on Long Island.”

4. Ontario, Canada

This is OK, as long as you are willing to say, “Maryland, U.S.” Better to say, “Toronto, Canada,” Or, really, “Toronto, Ontario.”

5.  The Vermont-Canada border

Wrong! It’s apples and oranges. One is a U.S. state and the other is a country. Say “the U.S.-Canada border” or "“the Vermont-Quebec border.”

6. The Florida-Georgia border

This one is style. But again, our motto is that consistency improves clarity. Our style: border, state line, county line, city limit. So: The U.S.-Mexico border. The Florida-Georgia state line. The Fulton-DeKalb county line. The Austin city limit.

7. The Marlins have 21 foreign players, three of those from Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is part of the United States!!! If you did not know this, you have to sit in the corner.

8. West Boca

City of Los Angeles

In southern California, more than two thirds of the area of Los Angeles County — a total of 2,653 square miles, an area bigger than Delaware — is unincorporated. It’s not in any city. Any one of the some 1 million people living there might say he lives in Los Angeles, but in the interest of accuracy, you shouldn’t. This is more of an issue here in Southeast Florida, where municipalities line the coast and interior areas are just open parts of various counties. Lazy reporters will call the area west of a city “west.” As in “West Boca.” The problem with that is that, of course, there already is a West Boca. It’s the west side of the city of Boca Raton. Once you cross the street, you are WEST OF BOCA RATON. We like to say, “New Mexico is not in West Texas. It’s west of Texas. And West Virginia is not western Virginia. Just ask ‘em.”

9. The Cowboys stadium is in Dallas. Arlington National Cemetery is in Washington.

Wrong. Do your homework! The Cowboys stadium is in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. And dealing with “Arlington” for the cemetery near Washington is a good way to start another Civil War. It might be just across the river, but it’s in Virginia. Lazy writers will just presume. Don’t. Look it up.

10. England is the United Kingdom. 

Geology.com

England is PART OF the United Kingdom, which consists of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

11. Iran is the most dangerous Muslim country in the Arab world.

Iran is Muslim, but it’s not Arab. Some areas are Arab but not Muslim. People are OK with dozens of Christian denominations, but presume all Arabs are Muslims and all Muslims are Arabs and everyone in the Middle East is both. Wrong.

12. France has an embassy in Atlanta.

An embassy is a foreign country’s primary institution. It almost always is in the capital. If a foreign country has regional institutions, they are called consulates

13. Everglades. Rockies. Hawaii Volcanoes. 

Careful. Parts of the Everglades, parts of the Rockies, and some of Hawaii’s volcanoes are outside the national parks.

14. The Gulfstream

The ocean current is two words.

15.  The Sunshine State, the River of Grass, the Big Apple, Empire State, the Nation’s Capital, Music City, the Big Easy, Sin City.

You can use each of these nicknames once. Once. After that, it’s a cliché.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/r3bSrxAE3MU

Next time: Bad history

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!

From the Grammar Police

One. One. One in nine Americans faces food insecurity.

This ad doesn’t know who’s who. Both sentences refer to the potential customer, not the jeweler. Change the first sentence to “How much is your jewelry worth?”

Read here for the latest in ootball, aseball and asketball!

Sppel check, sppel check, sppel check!

And we go to the video archives for Segment 5: Homophones. https://youtu.be/8fp0P4ZIK00

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!

Segment 22: Style

Readers: The concept of writing “style” often is a question not of right or wrong, but “OK” vs. “better.” It’s a method by which institutions create rules for how to say certain things so they always are consistent. It just helps. Every newspaper in America, not to mention the Associated Press, has a bible called a “stylebook.” Both Eliot and Lou Ann were on a committee that in 1993 updated the one for The Palm Beach Post.

Each of the following examples is in keeping with the AP stylebook, and those guys seem to know what they’re doing.

1. Over 100 planes flew over the city.

Over” is more about place than math. Use “More than 100” instead.

2. Fewer gas cars means less gasoline used.

This is correct. “Fewer” for objects. “Less” for volume.

3. Congressional medal of honor

Its official name doesn’t include “Congressional.”

4. The Washington Senators were a whopping 17.5 games behind the Yankees.

If you never will use 17.6 or 17.4, just use a fraction. They were 17½ games behind. And why on earth would you use 17.0? We’ve seen it.

5. The jury found the defendant innocent. 

Under the American system of justice, a jury doesn’t rule that someone was innocent. It rules that prosecutors failed to prove the person guilty. In fact, more than one jury has said it believed the person did it but the state didn’t prove it, so he/she walks. Preferred: A jury found the defendant not guilty.

6. The Democrat party

We want to be careful here, because this gets into politics. But not really. It’s not the Republic party. People on the right started a policy of not saying “Democratic Party” and instead said “Democrat Party,” for obvious optics. If you want to do it, go ahead. We will follow our style. And not because of politics.

7. Police released a report.

Who came up with the idea of agencies “releasing” a report? It conjures up images of the reporter as Oliver Twist, empty plate in hand, waiting for some bureaucrat to deign to provide information. “Please, sir. I’d like some more.” And, frankly, “release” suggests the agency is giving the information as an act of charity. This is public information to which the public is entitled, unless there's a good reason to withhold it. And the optic is of someone opening a cage door and letting something escape. Say “posted” or “provided" or "issued." Also, saying police “did not release information about how the man was killed” is woefully wordy and bureaucratic. Say, “Police did not say how the man was killed.”

8. This was the worst plane crash in U.S. history.

You can argue a plane crash that killed a lot of people was the best plane crash, and the worst crash would be a plane that didn’t crash. Daily usage probably has overruled us on this one. Maybe “most horrific plane crash.” (By the way, remember not to substitute “deadly plane crash!”)

9. It’s one thing to be a killer, but JFK’s murderer was the assassin of our time.

This sentence is correct. You can be a killer (accidental) without being a murderer. And most murderers are not assassins. An assassin is the killer of a political figure.

10. Dr. Jill Biden is not a doctor.

10. This caused a stir just before Joe Biden’s inauguration. Associated Press style is to use “Dr.” only for medical doctors, and so the wire service would not say, “Dr. Albert Einstein,” “Dr. Henry Kissinger,” or “Dr. Martin Luther King.” Some newspapers have chosen not to follow that rule. We at Horribly Wrong do follow it, and would not call Mrs. Biden “Dr. Biden” in news stories. But we note that Jill Biden does have a doctorate, and she and others can use “Dr.” in front of their names if they want.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/Goq4t5nC0aw

Next time: Bad geography

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!

From the Grammar Police

These are scary!

The horror of the misplaced modifier! Sounds like the quiet and careful observer is very skittish! Apparently, observers also prefer to hunt at night and sleep during the day.

Aargh! It’s Santa! Already! And while he might know how to make a list, these folks don’t. Here’s what this says:
Santa said you were naughty.
Santa said you were nice.
Santa said you were laughed out loud.
Correct:
Santa:
Said you were naughty
Said you were nice.
Laughed out loud.

Better: “We all could use…”

Robbie Kleinberg

The Apostrophe Monster strikes again!

And there’s that dollars dollars thing again again.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 4: Oxymorons. https://youtu.be/_2-c0SVy67w

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!

Segment 21: Prepositions

Readers:  Here’s a marvelous grammar joke: A Texan, on his first day as a student at Harvard, stops by two people who are sitting in the quad. He asks, “Excuse me boys. Where’s the student union at?” One of the men sniffs, “At Harvard, we don’t end a sentence with a preposition.” The Texan takes a breath, and says, “OK. Where’s the student union at, a**hole?”

Many grammar scholars have relented and begun allowing sentences to end in prepositions. The “Horribly Wrong” team doesn’t like them. This is a segment that’s subject to discussion. So discuss.

• This is something I won’t put up with.

• This is an ideal I pledge allegiance to.

• Whose house are you staying in?

• What are you talking about?

• Who will we go with?

• Where did they come from?

• I wonder who/whom this book was written by.

• These expenses still haven’t been accounted for.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/vkgrc3zTO7U

Next time: The stylebook

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!

From the Grammar Police

Recently, part of the Horribly Wrong Team went to New England to see leaves showing traditional bright colors -- and also saw signs showing traditional grammatical mistakes!

Perhaps if they didn’t expend unnecessary apostrophes, they could afford to stay open on Tuesdays!

Another sign not making cents! A tenth of a penny? A fourth of a penny? They meant a dime and a quarter, didn’t they?

Hey! Let’s make up a word! And then use the correct spelling right next to it!

Scott Simmons

We’re sure someone spent a lot of time making this sign. Did no one notice?

Erica Beresh

Yeah. This one too.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 3: Tight Writing. https://youtu.be/O2IlgufaFnA

From the mailbag:

Can I suggest there be a special place in hell for those authors who use the word "smirk" in the place of the word "smile"? I have been seeing this in dozens of books I have read in the past several years. Listen up, authors! Words have meaning. Words are your stock in trade. LEARN the meaning of your words. Unless you really do mean to knock your readers right out of the spell of your stories and force them to never buy your books again. Also, seeing as how I am on a rant, people who use "should of" instead of "should've", and not in a quaint-example-of-ignorant-country-dialect way, but as straight up normal speech, also need to end up in that same corner of hell. — Brigitta Veseu, Palm Coast, Fla.

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!

Segment 20: Its not that hard

Readers: All of these are wrong! Including our headline.

• The battery lost it’s juice (“Its juice”)

• You know when its time to go. (“it’s time”)

• Do you know where your going? (“where you’re”)

• Everyone loved you’re presentation. (“loved your”)

• Don’t panic. Their coming to save you. (“they’re coming”)

• The players all forgot they’re uniforms. (“their uniforms”)

• I don’t know whose coming, but I know who’s car this is. (“who’s coming,” “whose car”)

• Lets win this for the old man. (Let’s win this”)

• Student’s supporting Mitt Romney should meet in the lounge. (“Students supporting”)

• Student’s grades will be posted Thursday. (“Students’ grades”)

• Holiday greetings from the Miller’s. (“Millers”)

• You cant handle the truth. (“can’t handle”)

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/Pih1IvLnQJA

Next time: The pesky preposition

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!

From the Grammar Police

Readers: While researching newspaper archives from the 1930s, for a project unrelated to “Horribly Wrong,” our team discovered the same mistakes it finds now. When it comes to bad grammar, when will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

It is entire stock?

Here’s a modifier that’s as far away from its object as Uruguay is from Germany.

Back to the present:

Hey! They reduced their budget by one letter and passed the savings on to you! How exquiste!

Never should. Always should. Never should. You don't "mow never the yard." So don't say you "should never buy something."

Repeat offense. “.50 cents” equals a half penny. They likely meant 50 cents.

Hank Kleinberg

Puppies are cute. Even they know to get on the waiting list if you’re interested.

This is, of course, redundant. How would you reveal something for a second time?

Robbie Kleinberg

How easy it would be to fix this!

Custom cakes for any occasion

Baked on premises

Better:

Custom cakes

baked here daily

Wrong. Tenants call attention. A group calls attention.

And one that shocked us by actually getting it right!

And we go to the video archives for Segment 2: More redundancies. https://youtu.be/SdkxCZmQrNU

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!

Segment 19: Everyone Doesn’t Like Grammar, Part Two

Readers: In our previous segment, we listed some common grammatical mistakes. Even if the Horribly Wrong team limited itself to just the most outrageous, did you really think they’d fit in one segment? Here are more:

1. Each defendant is entitled to legal council.

Nope. A lawyer might speak before a city council, but your lawyer is your legal counsel.

2. The class action suit was filed by attorney generals from a dozen states.

Not “attorney generals.” “Attorneys general” is awkward but correct, unless the attorneys, who might not be lawyers at all, are generals (they get to wear the stars).

3. The local historic society threw a party to commemorate the historical event.

“Historical” refers to the study of history. “Historic” means something that has historic importance.

4. Dorothy saw the Wicked Witch as she peddled by.

It’s “pedal.” Peddling is selling things.

5. Quentin Tarantino co-executive-produced the movie.

From what lab did someone cobble together phrases to create a grammatical Frankenstein’s monster? You can’t just shove parts of speech together and hope they stick. And, as we have shown in previous segments, you can’t arbitrarily make a noun a verb, and vice versa. You can’t just keep adding modifiers until your sentence becomes so heavy it falls off the table and gets eaten by your dog. It’s cowardly writing. Be brave! “Quentin Tarantino was an executive producer of the movie.”

6. A couple lawyers just sat down.

“A couple of lawyers.”

7. You may get sick if you eat too much.

“May” means you have permission. What you want to say is that you might get sick or could get sick.

8. He was the best running back ever, even compared to today’s players.

Wrong. You compare to one person. You compare with many persons.

9. Banks love to loan money, but I could never get a loan.

Loan is a noun. Lend is a verb. And it’s “never could.” So: “Banks love to lend money, but I never could get a loan.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/EpaisXp1J0s

Next time: Its not that hard. It really isnt.

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

From the Grammar Police

We’re getting possessive about apostrophe’s!

Scott Simmons

Scott Simmons

And we go to the archives for Segment 1: Redundancies. https://youtu.be/UCj0VGJdlP0

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!

Segment 18: Everyone Doesn’t Like Grammar

Readers: Kudos to everyone who caught the mistake in the headline! This is a common goof. It suggests no one likes grammar. Clearly some people, including your “Horribly Wrong” team, like grammar very much. More grammar goofs:

1. All law firms are not alike.

This is a chronic goof similar to the one in the headline. You can argue that many law firms are not alike, but clearly some are alike. Correct: “Not all law firms are alike.”

2. Tebow is an alumni of the University of Florida. 

“Alumni” is plural. Tebow is an alumnus. A female is an alumna.

3. The media is picking on the new mayor.

“The media” also is plural. So you’d have to say, “The media are...” But we hate the phrase “the media” anyhow, since it clearly has come to mean more than just reporters, and no one can decide who it includes and excludes.

4. More reporters mean more stories.

“More reporters means more stories.” Again, you are referring not to “reporters” but to “more” which is a single concept.

5. None of the businesses are licensed. 

None of the businesses is licensed. You are referring not to “businesses” but to “none,” which takes a singular.

6. The Army, with all its divisions, have one of the world’s greatest fighting forces.

You’re playing off “the Army,” not “divisions,” so the Army has one of the world’s greatest fighting forces.

7. I criticized the people that ran away. 

“The people who ran away.” Use “that” for inanimate objects.

8. Red Grange was more an NFL phenomena than a trend setter.

Phenomena” is plural. Red was a phenomenon.

9. The dog was ordered to be euthanized. The bridge was directed to be torn down.

The dog and bridge weren’t ordered to do anything. Neither would listen, anyway. They’re a dog. And a bridge. Maybe you could order the dog to sit. People were “ordered to euthanize the dog” and “directed to tear down the bridge.”

10. It was a meeting of small businessmen.

A meeting of small businessmen? Now that’s a visual! Not to mention offensive to short people! How about: “It was a meeting of owners of small businesses.”

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/Qog48LhZdKU

Next time: Theres more example’s of bad grammer out their.

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!

From the Grammar Police

More more repeat repeat offenses…

There’s that dollars dollars thing again again!

This is a chronic goof. “Fuel” refers to the mob. Not the fools. So it would be “Mob of fools fuels the...”

We know ad space is expensive, but it looks like you could have fixed this without spending another penny. Just add one letter: “If you have trouble standing and walking distances...”

And we go to the video archives for our introduction to “Horribly Wrong:” https://youtu.be/Ctgr272Bymk

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!

Segment 17: The comma, splice

Readers: In our previous segment, we talked about commas. We’re not done. People regularly trip over the comma splice. Every one of these sentences is wrong, and could be fixed by changing the comma to a period.

• I love going to the movies, it's so fun.

• She took the boy's cookies away, that was mean.

• The teacher was angry, the students were too loud.

• I think he's in love, he acts so weird now.

• We went to the store, we bought milk.

• I often walk the dogs on the beach, they love splashing in the waves. 

• I can't wait to go on vacation, it will be hot and sunny.

• Thank you, your order has been placed. (Extra credit if you can identify the popular online seller that uses this mistake every time you buy something. Yeah. That one.)

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/uRLzHIdMJjg

Next time: Everyone doesn’t like bad grammar. Who do?

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!