From the Grammar Police

March 5, 2023

We keep telling you. But do you listen?

Way back in Segment 26, on Jan. 2, 2022, we argued that crude writing is, in most cases, bad writing. Our ears can handle the coarse phrases and imagery. But they just make us feel, well, dirty. And expose the writer as lazy. We especially are bothered by people who use euphemisms and forgot, or actually don’t know, what they really mean. Look at this popular comic strip. You just remembered a pair of what. Didn’t you? And now this is doubly unsuitable. Because it uses a really crass term. And because these are not things you can grow. Especially if your name is Tiffany.

In Segment 51, “Maybe,”on Dec, 18, 2022, we talked about cowardly writers who use too many qualifiers. In this case, the former president potentially is included in the indictment recommendations. In fact, any of the dozens of people who were even tangentially connected to the investigation “potentially” is included. “Potentially” is a pretty low bar.

Our Aug. 1, 2021, segment covered the problem of putting “only” in the wrong place. This sentence suggests that after Trump refused to comply, the DOJ didn’t write him or have breakfast or watch TV. The agency only searched his home. Correct: “DOJ searched Trump’s home only after he refused to comply.”

We dealt with this hyphen in our May 8, 2022, segment on sports. Doors open at 11 a.m. Doors are open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pick one.

We’ve pointed this out before. No matter how you season it, .75 cents still is three-fourths of a penny.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 38: The greatest movie of all time. https://youtu.be/kjUVA87ZLbY

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!

Segment 56: Back to School

February 26, 2023

In case you are wondering whether the “Horribly Wrong” team, at least half of it, came late to the issue of good writing/bad writing:

Recently, Eliot came across a paper he wrote in April 1977 (!!!) for a Journalism 301 class at the University of Florida. It was “BLOOPERS: Sloppy editing and its ramifications.” Talk about “The more things change, the more they stay the same!”

(An aside: Eliot was a grammar policeman even then. When guys in his frat pinned to the bulletin board notes about a concert ticket for sale, or an upcoming social, or a need for a ride home for spring break, Eliot would take a red pen to them. Honest. Made him real popular.)

Eliot’s “Bloopers” essay is no Elements of Style. But it has something in common with that revered tome: Goofs are not new. That doesn’t excuse them. In nearly a half century of writing, Eliot himself has made his share.

In JM 301, there wasn’t a lot of leeway. Students used actual police reports or other documents to write a news story. Eliot’s paper notes, and he grimly recalls, that a story turned in with a typo — recall we still used typewriters! — was an automatic one-grade drop. And any fact error — it could be a simple misspelling of a name — earned an automatic failing grade. (For some reason, UF used “E” instead of “F.” It allowed professors to smugly advise that a student should have been a little more diligent and was getting an “E for easy.”)

Eliot’s paper acknowledges what "Horribly Wrong" is saying decades later: “As has been seen in this class, some slip-ups can often be very humorous. But they can also be damaging and dangerous." (Yes. Grammatically, it should be “often can” and “also can.” Is there a statute of limitations?)

The essay gave some examples Eliot had found in area newspapers. Among them:

A story said Eastern Airlines (remember them?) changed a Miami-to-Gainesville flight from 7:15 p.m. to 7:05 p.m. But the story said 7:15 a.m. (No self-respecting college student would be up at that hour.)
A story said, "Women can obtain abortions if pregnancy is after 14 months." Biology 101 anyone?
A headline misspelled then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle as “Roselle.”
A series of news briefs included a 30-below-zero reading in Minneapolis and an anti-gay effort in Florida. The headline writer, desperate to be clever, wrote, "The Cold and the Gay."
A multi-deck headline ended up in the wrong order:

Stathe Plans
To Bring
And Plaza
Downtown
Back to Life

Eliot’s paper also says, "A story that has been written well but gets hurt by a typo or poor layout is not fair to the reporter who worked so hard to get his story right." In his ensuing career, Eliot lost some of his conceit, as he learned the hard way that far more often, it was the other way around. It was the editor who caught Eliot's goofs, thus averting catastrophe and saving Eliot from a dressing-down, or worse. Many times at The Palm Beach Post, that editor was none other than Lou Ann Frala, the "Horribly Wrong" Rules Committee.

PS: Eliot’s paper got a B-plus.

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

Next time: Not so fast!

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

February 19, 2023

“New?” Ummm, something you guys want to tell us?

We continue our challenge of “around the corner.” This email dropped Jan. 25. The NCAA Tournament starts March 14. That’s 48 days. Seven weeks. Nearly two months. Again we ask: How close must something be to be “around the corner?” Readers?

For the operators of this hotel, “Men’s Room” just didn’t look right. So they took the awkward step of scratching out the apostrophe. You can see the space. But Men’s is correct. It’s not Mens,’ because Men already is plural. And it sure isn’t just Mens. To aggravate things, the operators decided that on the other side of the alcove, Women’s was just fine. Go figure.

You do a great job making chairs, why don’t you make sure to end sentences in periods, don’t end a sentence in a comma, thank you.

Everyday is an adjective meaning common, which probably isn’t what you intended. The sign suggests breakfast gets interesting only after 10:30 a.m. (It actually goes away after 10:30 a.m.) No. You want folks to come to your fast-food place for a great breakfast every day!
Also, this place’s do-it-yourself ordering kiosk had a button to checkout. Should it say check out? This is a judgment call, because checkout is a noun for a place to check out, so maybe that’s what they meant.
One more item: while the place spells breakfast right on this big sign, on a smaller sign out front, it spells it break fast. While yes, the definition of breakfast is in fact, breaking a fast, we suspect you didn’t mean that. A loyal reader pointed out the folks behind the sign might have been trying to be clever, as in accentuating “fast.” We aren’t so sure. Note: You might spot these goofs yourselves. This is a chain with locations across North America. Remember, Grammar Police: if you see something, send it in!

And we go to the video archives for Segment 37: Homophones! https://youtu.be/IbiDXmT8y8w

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Longtime reader and loyal Grammar Police contributor Dr. Baruch Kahana submits this newspaper headline from the Feb. 13, 2023, tragedy at Michigan State University: “Three dead, multiple injured.” He asks the Rules Committee to distinguish between multiple and many.
The Modern Language Association of America’s MLA Style Center suggests “many” for things happening over time and “multiple” for things that happen at the same time. So, “many shootings in 2022” but “multiple injured at Michigan State.”
The Rules Committee’s Lou Ann Frala says:
“While I can accept the MLA’s ruling, I have to say ‘multiple injured’ looks wrong. It grates on the ears. If the number of injured was not known or not revealed, I understand the hedging, but my immediate sense would be that “many injured” would be preferable.”

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Segment 55: Hiding in Plain Sight

February 12, 2023

Readers: It’s bad enough that people use clichés. Sometimes they have no clue what they’re saying. They certainly don’t know the phrase’s origin. Some clichés are anachronisms, which we covered in previous segments. Some have obvious origins. Others, not so much.

1. Hue and Cry. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, it can be traced to the Old French words hue, meaning "outcry" or "noise," and cri, meaning "cry."

2. Rank and File. According to Dictionary.com, “This phrase comes from military usage, where enlisted men march in ranks (close abreast) and files (one behind another), whereas officers march outside these formations.”

3. Right wing/Left wing. According to History.com, in the events leading up the French Revolution, “anti-royalist revolutionaries seated themselves to the presiding officer’s left, while the more conservative, aristocratic supporters of the monarchy gathered to the right.”

4. Win hands down. According to MentalFloss.com, in horse racing, “if you’re way ahead of everyone else, you can relax your grip on the reins and let your hands down.”

5. Over the transom. You might hear a writer say he wasn’t optimistic about an agent reading his manuscript because he sent it cold. He'll say he submitted it “over the transom.” In the days before air conditioning, this was a small window that remained open for ventilation even when an office was locked up for the day. The idea was that a publisher — or agent — would find the thing when he/she opened for the morning. And good luck with that.

6. Loose cannon. According to The Phrase Finder, on warships, a cannon that broke free on deck was a double threat: firing a shot into the crew or running someone over.

7. Fly off the handle. According to Reader’s Digest, the heads of poorly made axe heads sometimes flew off in use, leading to a phrase that describes dangerous behavior with unpredictable results.

8. Knock on wood. This expression for luck, usually said after a wishful statement, is believed to stem from any of a number of tales about trees holding spirits that would grant wishes, or evil spirits who could block wishes unless confronted. Some Christians link it to the wood of the cross of Crucifixion.

9. Without further ado. What’s ado? According to Grammarist.com, it’s a contraction of “at do,” a “Middle English term meaning trouble, fighting or conflict. In time the word ado came to mean a fuss, hubbub, or trivial chaos.” Remember Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing? OK. So why the heck do emcees, before introducing someone, say, “Without further hubbub?”

10. Phone it in. Mail it in. Most people probably could figure this out if they thought about it. You’re communicating by phone or mail because you’re too lazy to come down in person. It’s become a metaphor for making the most minimal effort.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/aMkitBA7YTE

Next time: Back to school.

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From the Grammar Police

February 5, 2023

Nope. When the Jags make a comeback, they come back.

We tell you again: You fall through the cracks. The part between the cracks is the floor. You can’t fall through that.

Ever have been on a plane that diverted? How about one that had an emergency landing? They are not the same. When you divert, you are flying just fine; you just need to land somewhere other than your planned destination, due to weather or maybe an unruly or ill passenger. If you are making an emergency landing, it means something’s really wrong, and you have to land now. Right now. And it might not end well. This flight just was diverted. It landed just fine.

Passer-bys? No. Passers-by,
Attorney generals? No. Attorneys general.
Secretary of States? No. Secretaries of State.
Court-martials? No. Courts-martial.
Brother-in-laws? No. Brothers-in-law.

Whoops. This is correct! We thought for sure there was no apostrophe. But the Associated Press Stylebook, the bible of the “Horribly Wrong” Rules Committee, has decreed this acceptable. We yield to the AP.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 36: One word or two? https://youtu.be/6fobNDldgjU

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Segment 54: Your government at work

January 29, 2023

Readers: Last year, Gary Comp of Sarasota sent us a memo he’d been saving for more than two decades. It was from his supervisor in the local government agency where Gary once worked. Only a bureaucrat could write a memo complaining about bad writing, and fill it with bad writing! Extraneous capitalizations, misspelling, grammatical mistakes and unintelligible wording. Yikes.

In 1975, Eliot’s first year of college, he was floored when a political science professor asserted there were not three but four branches of government. The known three: executive (president), legislative (Congress) and judicial (courts). The fourth: the bureaucracy.

We’ve talked about the breathless excess of TV news and the hurts-my-brain vocabulary of the corporate world. Today we tackle government bureaucracy, which — on your dime — regularly spits out items that either state the obvious or are hopelessly unintelligible. It seems there’s nothing in between.

In 2010, the federal government passed the Plain Writing Act. That should have done it. Right.

These are actual things said by local, state or federal agencies:

“We are monitoring the situation.”
Hello, Captain Obvious! Also, weather always is in the area! And, oh yeah: It’s “updated.”
“We’ll provide more information as soon as it becomes available.”
Good thing they don’t provide information before it becomes available.
“Our goal: To drive a continuous improvement culture of excellence that achieves a measurably high level of public satisfaction.”
“A proud, proactive, progressive team committed to innovation and leadership through the provision of services enhancing the quality of life in our community.”
“(Entity) will continue to be a healthy and progressive community that supports development opportunities, lifestyle quality and open, flexible governance.”

“Please listen carefully, as our telephone options recently have changed.”
This nearly always is a lie to get you to pay attention; many agencies run this same “recently changed” warning for months.“

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/chCLmG9egoY

Next time: Hiding in plain sight.

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

January 22, 2023

In our first Grammar Police segment of 2023, *on Jan. 8, we showed some of the chronic goofs out there. We couldn’t fit them all in! Here are more. These are about money.***

As always, we give leeway when people are rushing to tweet something. Reminder: The last sentence literally says, “four dollars dollars.”

You can substitute slang, but this still says “Fifteen dollars bucks.” Which is the same as “Fifteen dollars dollars.”

Redundancies abound! First, as with the gasoline tweet, this literally says, “five dollars dollars.” But wait! There’s more! While not grammatically wrong, this certainly can be tightened. First, the “.00” is extraneous. And there are no instructions —actually, they’re self explanatory — so take out the word! Now it just says, “Computer rental: $5 up to 15 minutes.” Done.

This one nearly caught us. We thought for sure we had another “dollar dollar” example. But this is correct! It turns out there is a drink called a "dollar martini.” Who knew?

Again with the currency goofs! We once more will remind you that .50¢ doesn’t mean a half dollar. It means a half penny. Doesn’t it? Look. Just remove the period. We did. Makes sense now. Doesn’t it?

And we go to the video archives for Segment 35: Scuffling with sports clichés. https://youtu.be/osJ3vufgx64

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:

Longtime reader and occasional contributor Bob Yankowitz respectfully submits an objection to part of Segment 2, on redundancies, dating all the way back to Jan. 31, 2021.
We decried the need for an advertiser to include the state and zip code when listing the address of his/her establishment. We argued that folks reading the ad likely lived in the area and knew exactly what state both they and the establishment were in (and we still don’t know why you need a ZIP code!). That’s especially the case in “Horribly Wrong’s” base of South Florida, where it’s a drive of about five hours to the nearest state line.
Bob argues New England, where he lives, is a different story. After all, you can drive across the entire region in a few hours. And we found a web page dedicated strictly to town names that appear in more than one New England state. Would you believe there’s a town of Warren in each one?!
We also note that our own Lou Ann Frala hails from Kansas City, Missouri, which is right next to Kansas City, Kansas. Oy.

On Bob’s motion, the rules committee CONCURS, based on circumstances and location. As always, use common sense first.

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Segment 53: Anachronisms, Part 2

January 15, 2023

Readers: Last time we talked about words that refer to items or practices that were anachronisms. Here’s more, all of them directly related to technology and electronics.

Hanging up the phone, putting the phone back on the hook, ringing off the hook:

In the early days of telephony, a telephone consisted of a box mounted on a wall and an earpiece connected by a cord that lay on a "hook" fitted with a spring. Lifting it activated the telephone line. The user then was connected to an operator who manually connected him/her through a giant switchboard. The person disconnected by laying the receiver back on the "hook," thus "hanging up" the phone.

Dialing the phone:

Phones morphed from the box-and-earpiece to a desk set in which a handset -- earpiece and mouthpiece together -- lifted and went against your face. (A side note: these handsets were incredibly heavy and were quite popular, and effective, weapons in domestic homicides.) Automation had eliminated the need to have a human "operator" connect the call for you. Instead, phones used what now would be considered neanderthal technology but which at the time was quite groundbreaking.

The phone had a "dial.” It was a plastic or metal ring on a spring with 10 circular openings and a "stop". You stuck your finger in one and turned the dial until you hit the "stop,” then let go. As the dial's spring returned it to its normal position, it made clicks equal to the hole. Stick your finger in the five hole, turn it, let go, and as it returns, you hear five ticks. So did the phone system's electronic brain. You've dialed "5." You moved that dial seven times -- 10 for long distance -- and it "dialed" the number. Phones later went to the 10-button "beep-boop-beep" keyboard, which cellphones lovingly have graphically recreated.

Tune in for tonight's game/Don't touch that dial/Change the channel:

The original television stations broadcast on a range of frequencies set aside by the government. Transmissions were "carried" in those slots in the atmosphere, which became known as "channels." Most towns had three local stations, and to get to them, you turned a big dial on the set. It ranged from 2 to 13 (There was no Channel 1.) This was "VHF" -- "very high frequency." Soon a second set of channels appeared. It was "UHF" -- “ultra high frequency." It originally went from 14 to 83.

Early remote controls sent a signal to a motor in the set that physically turned the dial. You actually could hear it whirr. Electronic tuning made the “dial” obsolete. And the advent of cable television made the "channel" number superfluous, but TV stations are heavily invested in branding themselves through their channel numbers, and so they make sure those numbers are still promoted. Loyal viewers still talk to their remote and tell it to switch to cable position 1037 so they can watch the local news on "Channel 4."

Wiring money:

When the telegraph was an important means of communication, banks would transfer money by sending telegrams. Nowadays it's done on the blink of an eye, via an email or an app. No wires. But at last check, you still can do it via Western Union.

Ticker Tape Parade:
In the late 1800s, Wall Street investors got a breakthrough device. Previously, messengers literally ran them the latest stock information from nearby brokerage offices. A new machine was fed by telegraph lines and printed out, on a roll of 1-inch wide paper ribbon, the latest on stocks; volume, prices, changes. The tick-tick-tick of the typing gave the machine its name. (An aside: loyal reader Dr. Baruch Kahana asked about the usage of “uptick” instead of increase. Yep. It’s the ticker.) Electronics had replaced the ticker by the 1970s, but TV business programs still honor it with the "crawl" along the bottom of screens.

Lower Manhattan historically has hosted parades. In October 1886, during one honoring the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street businessmen spontaneously tore up used ticker ribbons and flung the shreds out their windows. A tradition was born. Office workers now toss out the contents of their office shredders, but the nickname continues.

(Special thanks to telephony scholar Al DaValle and engineer Bob Yankowitz.)

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

Next time: Your government at 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!

From the Grammar Police

January 8, 2023

How about a New Year’s resolution to shed those chronic goofs?!

This still is one of our favorites. You don’t say, “turkey bird.” Then why do you say, “tuna fish”?

It’s been a while since we had to remind you that IMPACT IS NOT A VERB!

Remove “in 10” and you see where you went wrong. It’s not 10 neighbors. It’s just one.
· “One of your neighbors has to make…”
· ”One in 10 of your neighbors has to make…”

A group was stopped. A vessel was intercepted. You knew that.

Whoever writes the slogans for this big law firm forgot the elementary “only” rule, which we find so infuriating we dedicated an entire segment to it in August 2021. What this ad is saying is that if the lawyers win, you won’t eat, stand or breathe. Just pay. Here’s the correct wording: “Pay only if we win.”

We dedicated two segments to the assaults on the poor defenseless comma. Again: When you use a comma in a series of phrases, it’s a contraction of sorts. It saves words and makes for tight writing, which we love. But time and again we see people mess up as they did here. Here’s what this sentence literally says:
Get help if you have rash (hives).
Get help if you have trouble breathing.
Get help if you have feel faint or dizzy.
Get help if you have have swelling of your lips, tongue, or throat.

Of course, that’s not what these guys meant. Should be: “Get help if you have rash (hives) or trouble breathing, or feel faint or dizzy, or have swelling of your lips, tongue, or throat.”

We addressed this in our Feb. 28, 2021, segment on oxymorons. Remember: An appointment is not the thing you are attending. It’s something you mark in your calendar. Substitute “reservation” for “appointment” and you see how it doesn’t work. So in this case, you are being asked to make a reservation for your reservation for your spot in the sale.

A loyal reader recently brought this 1998 film to our attention. The title is clever. But it’s wrong. “Hardly” means barely. So it should be “Can Hardly wait.” “Can’t Hardly Wait” suggests you wait all day. It’s in the category of the horrid “I could care less.”

We covered this in our Sept. 12, 2021, segment. It suggests no two hearing aids are alike. Obviously some are. Should be: “Not all hearing aids are created equal.”

Eliot recently visited his 90-year-old dad, whos himself a longtime editor. Pop, unsolicited, commented on this sign where he live’s. Its not hard to be correct on the day’s of the week.

“Doc: I’ve told you before about the comma splice in this sign you posted in sick bay. We learned this in the academy. This needs to be two sentences: ‘The room is cold. Please bring a jacket.’”
“Dang it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a grammarian.”

And we go to the video archives for Segment 34: Fun, jollification and enjoyment with synonyms. https://youtu.be/8QDLqNscym8

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Loyal reader and frequent contributor Dr. Baruch Kahana submits “Military discounts for those that served” and suggests it’s redundant. The Horribly Wrong team notes that many others — police, EMTs, nurses — serve as well, so the team grudgingly will ALLOW it. But the good doctor also argues “who served” is better than “that served.” We’ve ruled on this before and of course CONCUR. Remember: “style” suggests that for objects, who for people.
Doctor Kahana also sent us an article about a New Year’s Day tragedy that said in part, “The Nissan lost control and collided into a Dodge Challenger.” He notes that the car did not lose control. The driver did. We CONCUR. Also, you don’t collide into something; you collide with it. The Rules Committee (Lou Ann) notes the Associated Press stylebook recently said it now was OK for something to “collide” with a fixed object: “The definition of ‘collide’ used to require that the colliding objects had to be in motion. No more, as a century of constant misuse has brought yet another inexplicable evolution of the language. I will forever disagree, but as hills worth dying on go, this is not one.”

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!

Segment 52: Anachronisms

January 1, 2023

WE’RE STARTING OUR THIRD YEAR!

Readers: Happy New Year!

Do you still dial the phone in your wet bathing suit? Get out of the house! You're ruining the carpet.

Every day, people use anachronisms -- words and phrases that once made sense but don't anymore. We've dealt with some of these in previous segments.

Sometimes, the usage technically isn't wrong. But the Horribly Wrong team believes you'd benefit by weaning yourself off all of them. We acknowledge that, in most cases, we've lost the battle.

Bathing Suit:

Remarkably, it was the beginning of the 19th century before ocean swimming became popular in the United States. Naturally, people couldn't do it in street clothes. But rules of modesty were in vogue at the time. Women originally wore a full sleeved dress and leggings, which tended to defeat the goal of cooling off. This contraption was called a "bathing suit."

Nowadays, no one at the beach or the pool is bathing. That term once described any time in the water, but now has come to mean only immersion for purposes of soaping up.

Women now wear one- or two-piece outfits, often barely legal, but for lack of a better term, "swimsuit" still would be acceptable. Men's garb properly should be called "swim shorts” or “trunks.” Unless they're wearing what amounts to nylon panties. That’s not a suit.

Glove compartment/Roll down your window

Early cars were open to the elements. A ride in the country on a brisk winter's day could range from uncomfortable to injurious. Drivers traditionally kept gloves in their cars to help them manage a frigid steering wheel. Few people still store gloves in their glove compartment. But, unlike some of our other examples, we suspect some, especially in northern climes, still do.
And for decades, windows were raised and lowered by circular cranks. They’re electronic now, but the nomenclature stuck.

Reviewing the company books/cooking the books:

A few of our loyal readers suggest some small businesses still do their accounting by hand in big ledgers. We suspect most use a computer.

Filming:

We visited this in a previous segment. "Filming” refers to recording something on actual film. But while "dialing" or "tuning" refer to practices no longer used and thus are understood to be colloquial terms, some people still use film, so you really shouldn't use it unless someone really is using film. Webster’s has ruled it acceptable, but the “Horribly Wrong” team is about clarity! “Taped,” as a colloquial really no longer works either, since virtually nothing is recorded on magnetic tape, but, rather, on memory cards. Say, “recorded” or “shot.” You certainly don’t film something live. You broadcast or stream it live.

This anachronism is behind another one. You’ve heard sportscasters refer to “the highlight reel.” Before video, team staffers and news crews shot on film, which of course was run through projectors on a reel. When they wanted to splice together a collection of the best plays, that's what they called it.

Carbon copy:

Remember the scene in the movie Office Space in which the guys smashed a printer? The precursor to printers was photocopiers, which have been around only in the lifetime of the "Horribly Wrong" team. Current ones uses standard paper, but early ones were clunky and copied onto thermal paper, a thin paper on a roll that was coated in some kind of chemical which ruined your day if you rubbed a page and then accidentally touched your tongue. Before that? Way back in Charles Dickens' era, firms employed "scriveners" to laboriously rewrite documents. Typewriters were a game changer, but you still had to retype copies.

In the early 20th century came "carbon paper." It was a sheet coated in pigment and oil that was placed between two regular sheets of paper and the triad was rolled into the typewriter. A keystroke banged through the first sheet and into the "carbon paper" which marked the same character on the second sheet. Voila! Of course, you ended your day with black smudges all over your hand, face, and white dress shirt.
Documents often had a note at the bottom saying something such as: "CC: Personnel." That meant that a carbon copy went to the personnel office. That's what it was called before pinheads invented the term "human resources." Wouldn't a toenail be a “human resource”? When photocopiers made carbon paper obsolete, the phrase "carbon copy" stuck. So did “CC.” Check your email.

Icebox:

Before electric refrigerators, food was kept cold in something that looked like a refrigerator does now but didn't plug in. Instead, a big block of ice was placed inside. An "ice man" delivered it. You could argue that the cooler you use for your tailgate or the beach is an "icebox," although it likely uses cubes instead of a big block.

Record album:
The first records were low-quality discs that had to be played at a high speed to get good sound. At first, it was a swift 78 revolutions per minute (RPM). The singles that teens bought in the 1950s turned at 45 RPM. Technology later allowed for large "long playing" (LP) records that could play at just 33 RPM and hold several songs per side while still being highly faithful ("high fidelity.") to the quality of the original The phrase later was shortened to "Hi-Fi," which later inspired “Wi-Fi.” The early 78 RPM technology required people to buy a set of dozens of discs to enjoy even an hourlong performance. They came in large books whose pages had "pockets" into which the discs were stored for convenience and protection, The books resembled portrait albums. These days, it's not even a physical anything. But a collection of songs still is called an "album."

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/OZHusBtDpA4

Next time: More anachronisms.

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From the Grammar Police

December 25, 2022

Look what’s under the tree! Gift-wrapped goofs!

Sometimes you read something and then stop and say, “That’s not right.” Are there two spouts on either side? No. Just one on each side. Again we remind you of the power of the comma: “…not one but two spouts, on either side...” Oh. Now it makes sense. But still awkward. Better: “…You may have noticed a spout on each side...” Tighter as well. (Note: You don’t need the “why” after “reason.” And skip the gratuitous capitalizations, please.)

This jumped off the page at us. Apparently not so for the ad designer. Here. We fixed it. No charge. Making the world a more literate place is our reward.

We’ve dealt before with this violation of the space-time continuum. Griner was not freed after the exchange. She was freed in the exchange, or during the exchange.

We’re thinking house aides. House AIDS would be something really, really bad.

The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year for scammers. They’re counting on you being too busy to look closely. Because then you’d realize real companies don’t butcher grammar this clumsily. You’d think the crooks would have someone editing their fake email who speaks English as a first language. Remember: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. And that’s a cliché !

And then we saw this. There’s every indication this is a legitimate email from a major online seller. But it used “lookout” instead of “look out.” Thanks, guys, for making things harder for the “Horribly Wrong” team!

It’s been a while since the “Horribly Wrong” team was in grade school. But “Thursday-Saturday” still adds up to three days.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 33: Elements of Style. https://youtu.be/ZnK3wcm9mmw

From the mailbag: A reader identified only as “Nick” writes, “I do not believe the word cowardly is correctly used to describe peoples writing. Ignorant would best describe the flaws that you refer to.”
Nick: Yes, many people make mistakes out of ignorance, which is a commentary on our near-illiteracy. But we also call out people who could write better with a little effort, but are lazy or afraid. Those are our cowardly writers. Remember: Our goal is not to humiliate you. That’s why we don’t identify offenders. Our goal is to make you a better writer.

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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!

Segment 51: Maybe

December 18, 2022

Readers: NFL star, and later broadcaster, Don Meredith once said, "If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas."
Extra qualifiers are a form of redundancy — and a form of cowardly writing. You’re so afraid to make a definitive statement that you cover your backside with an extra “maybe.” How many qualifiers do you need?

"It’s a safe bet that Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino might break the NFL career passing yards record.”
It’s not just a safe bet. It is an absolute fact that he might break the record. That he WILL break the record is the maybe.
“He could face up to five years in prison upon conviction.”
If convicted, he absolutely, positively, faces up to five years in prison. “Up to” can include zero years.
“There’s a chance she could be back.”
There’s a chance she will be back! Even better, because it avoids unnecessary words: “She could be back.”
“Effects from this product can be fatal 50 percent of the time.”
“This isn’t just cowardly. It’s confusing! Presumably, effects can be fatal 100 percent of the time. Right? So are they saying effects never are fatal half the time? Or that there’s always a potential for fatality, but it’s greater half the time? We don’t know. Which means the writer failed.
“Dozens feared missing in Florida condo collapse."
Those people, sadly, were feared dead, but they definitely were missing. In this case, “missing” meant not accounted for. (Yes, we ended in a preposition.)
“Twitter suspends Trump permanently after inciting riot.”
This is a two-fer! First, it's a classic misplaced modifier, suggesting Twitter incited the riot. But there's a bonus! “Suspend” implies something temporary, so “suspends permanently” is an oxymoron. Just say “bans.” Actually, it might be more accurate to say “suspends indefinitely," because you couldn’t say Twitter later wouldn’t change its mind. Which it did.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/_NNs3q8kwX4

Next time: Anachronisms

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From the Grammar Police

December 11, 2022

Having been spotted far too often, the Grammar Police bring you a melange of misplaced modifiers!*

Now the CIA is attacking pipelines?

We always give some slack to writers whose first language is not English, as seems to be the case with the news webpage that posted this. Still, this classic misplaced modifier is pretty funny. A Russian vessel was fired from a flatbed truck?

Of course, it isn’t Russia that’s been encircled. It’s just the soldiers in that one city.

"We can call you back rather than waiting on hold.”
You probably have heard this during an interminable telephone ordeal with an airline or the cable company. You know what these guys mean. But of course, the wording suggests they are the ones waiting on hold. We wish. Should be, “If you don’t want to wait on hold, we can call you back..”

The sheriff was kicked out of the fair? And then killed a teen?

This paragraph was a “gold” mine of bad writing.
First, a misplaced modifier — our theme for this week — said the first Middle Eastern country to host the tournament was the World Cup. The World Cup’s not a country. Then it said this was the first time the tournament had been moved from summer to stave off heat, suggesting it was moved in the past for other reasons. (NOTE: IT was held in June 2010 in South Africa, but of course that part of the world was in early winter.) Also, you don’t need “normal summer schedule.” The writer then made the nation of France plural. And the whole paragraph is wordy. Here. Let’s fix this.
“Qatar will be the first Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup. The tournament will, for the first time, move from the Northern Hemisphere’s summer to winter. The reason: to stave off Qatar’s brutal heat. For 29 days, 32 countries will battle for the 18-karat gold trophy, now held by France, which won in 2018.”
We just cleaned up all the bad writing and tightened the paragraph from 73 words to 54. We cut it by a a fourth.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 32: Foreign words and phrases. Caution! ¡Cuidado! Mise en garde! Vorsicht! https://youtu.be/fGW0hrWTatM

Eagle eye: This segment has one misplaced modifier you might have missed. Did you spot it? See bottom.

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Loyal reader David Barak asked about our our Nov, 27, 2022, Grammar Police segment busting a bad TV headline: “Millions of Americans to start shopping this holiday weekend.” We said that sounded like they’d never shopped before, and fixed it to: “Millions of Americans plan to start holiday shopping this weekend.” Dave wrote, “Couldn't that also be interpreted as millions of Americans who have never shopped for the holidays will start doing so for the first time this weekend? My suggestion for clarity would be something like ‘Millions of Americans plan to start shopping for the 2022 holiday season this weekend’ or ‘Millions of Americans plan to start shopping this weekend for the 2022 holiday season.’" The Rules Committee CONCURS.

“Eagle eye” answer: The headline! It suggests the Grammar Police, not the misplaced modifier, were spotted far too often.

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Segment 50: Call me...Poindexter?

December 4, 2022

*I. W. Taber,. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York*

It’s our 50th segment!!!!!

Such an occasion calls for a special column. Today, we write poorly on purpose!

We’ve been saying throughout that good writing — whether in your corporation, to your retail customers, for your local newspaper, or for the New York Times bestseller list — isn’t just about proper grammar. Good writing is about clarity and impact. About avoiding clichés and redundancies and passive writing. About throwing out unnecessary words. About not being a cowardly writer.

The legendary authors all knew that. They wrote bravely. And the world is better for it.

So we’ve taken the opening lines — and one closing line — from classic stories and rewritten them in ways that likely would have earned us a nice form letter from a publisher. Try to guess the work. Do it on a dark and stormy night!

“An elderly fishing professional who operated as a sole proprietor in a small vessel on the open ocean began to develop feelings of frustration because a total of two months, three weeks and a day had elapsed during which he had had no success.”
“He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.” — Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
“Upon my birth, my parents found in the Old Testament an appellation to assign me for my Christian name, and you of course are welcome to greet me in that manner.”
“Call me Ishmael.” — Herman Melville: Moby Dick
“My business partner had passed away. That conclusion is not in dispute. His interment was authenticated by a religious official, a clerk, a funeral home representative, and the acquaintance who participated in the most substantial grief process.“
“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.” — Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol
“I will allow as how I have experienced anxiety, and those symptoms are ongoing. However, I would dispute a finding that I suffer from mental illness.”
“TRUE! – nervous – very, very nervous I am and had been and am; but why will you say I am mad?” — Edgar Allen Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart
“It's possible you became acquainted with my reputation after perusing a volume that described journeys and escapades undergone by a colleague. In any event, it bears no consequence.”
“You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter." -- Mark Twain: Huck Finn
“The era had resulted in the most positive of outcomes. But, paradoxically, it also had been the most unpleasant period.”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." -- Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities.
“Each young person eventually achieves maturity, with one exception.”
“All children, except one, grow up.” — J.M. Barrie: Peter Pan
“The events did occur, albeit perhaps not the exact way described.”
“All this happened, more or less.” — Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five
“Familial units find amity mostly in similar manners, but each family suffering from strife falls into that situation via its own path.”
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
“I found great enjoyment in incineration.”
“It was a pleasure to burn.” — Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451
“He powered off the room’s illumination and entered my brother's sleeping area. He would remain for the duration of the evening, and would be present the following morning when my brother rose from his sleep.”
“He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” — Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/aGClV8-CmEE

Next time: Maybe, maybe, maybe

From the mailbag: Our Nov. 20, 2022, segment on bad TV, specifically our discussion of the butchering of “breaking news,” prompted loyal reader David Barak to write, “I really hope that someday a TV weatherperson announces a newly-developed powerful storm as ‘breaking wind.’" We’d like to see that, too.

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From the Grammar Police

November 27, 2022

We officially are in the holiday season. And the bad grammar gifts are arriving already.

Our July 17, 2022, segment mentioned this dumb cliché. Our question: How do you quantify “just around the corner?” Eliot heard a commercial the day after Halloween that said Christmas was just around the corner. That’s 55 days; nearly two months. Another commercial that aired Nov. 6 said the 2023 Super Bowl was just around the corner. That’s 104 days, or 3½ months. Capt. James T. Kirk is born March 22, 2233. Is that right around the corner?

Boy, whoever wrote this for a major TV network must have come in the day after Thanksgiving still dopey from that big meal.
The first sentence suggests millions of people never shopped in their lives before this holiday weekend began. That’s an easy fix that requires moving just one word: “Millions of Americans plan to start holiday shopping this weekend.”
There’s more. Why is holiday capitalized in one place and not the other? It shouldn’t be capitalized in either place. Also, If electronics are at the top of your list, they already are top electronics. Redundant! And do we even need holiday the second time? No. So, “CEO…talks about electronics at the top of many wish lists.”

This ad might make us breath a little easier. But don’t hold your breathe.

It’s enough to make you faint!

We’ve seen this elsewhere. “Prepare to be amazed.” “Prepare to be shocked.” “Prepare to be astounded.” How the heck does that work? Can someone explain how you prepare? Go ahead. We’ll wait. Right. It’s a brutal cliché . And pretentious. And dumb.

And we go to the video archives for Segment 31: Not generic! https://youtu.be/UyB_PCbHBSs

From the mailbag:
Loyal reader and frequent contributor Dr. Baruch Kahana recently read in a major newspaper about a listeriosis outbreak caused by contaminated deli meat. The article said, “…one person got sick during their pregnancy.” Dr. Kahana bets his medical license that the pregnant person is a female. He says, “How about, ‘A woman got sick during her pregnancy?’” We, of course, CONCUR.

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Segment 49: TV? Again? Really?

November 20, 2022

Readers: When we run out of examples of bad writing on TV, both local and national, we’ll let you know.

1. “Returning now to our breaking news on last week’s shooting…” “We have breaking details.” “Watch out for breaking traffic.”

The term “breaking news,” sadly, has become meaningless, and is hovering dangerously close to being a cliché, if it hasn’t gotten there already. And don’t start with “breaking details” or “breaking traffic.” Those make no sense. They’re what we call “cliché creep.” But “breaking news” is the primary offender.
Four days after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, TV still was calling it “breaking news." It still was the biggest story, but it wasn’t breaking news. This is: A plane just crashed. People just were shot at a bus station. The U.S. Senate just passed a historic vote. The CEO of a major corporation just resigned. Two hours later, it’s not breaking news, unless another plane crashed, another shooting occurred, another historic vote took place, or another CEO quit. Supplemental developments — plane passengers arrived at the hospital, buses started running again, the Senate took a dinner break, or the CEO was seen leaving his office carrying a cardboard box — are NOT breaking news. They still are big news, but they are not breaking news.
This might sound like a lot of judgment calls. It is. That’s why newspaper metro editors and TV producers get big bucks. But these days, most of the time, when TV says “breaking news,” it just isn’t.

2. “The restaurant manager said he handpicked his staff.”

What’s the difference between "picked" and "handpicked?" Just say “picked.” Otherwise it's both a redundancy and a cliché.

3. "An officer was killed and another injured after a car rammed a barricade at the U.S. Capitol."

“An officer was killed and another injured when a car rammed a barricade at the U.S. Capitol."

4. “Police said the investigation is ongoing.”

This is an “obviosity” (not a real word.) An investigation is presumed to be ongoing until police say it isn’t.

5. “All eyes are on the U.S. Senate this week. It’s what everyone’s talking about.”

We’re going to guess some eyes were elsewhere this week. And, sadly, across America, many people were clueless about what was happening in Washington and instead were talking about the Kardashians.

6. “A K-9 officer was killed Thursday in a shootout, authorities said.”

It’s a dog. OK? It’s a dog. It’s not a K-9. It’s a dog. Also, “K-9 officer” could mean not the dog, but the officer who handles the dog. Which is it?

7. “I’m joined tonight by Julián Castro, former HUD secretary in the Obama administration.”

Castro wasn’t the former HUD secretary in the Obama administration. He was HUD secretary. Right? Just say, “Castro, HUD secretary in the Obama administration.”

8. “Marian Hunt remembers watching former President George W. Bush sign the important legislation.”

See #7. At the time, W wasn’t “former President.” Say, “then-President.”

9. “An Afghan refugee who then had to flee Ukraine now is reliving her nightmare all over again.”

Reliving all over again? Redundant. Correct: “reliving.” Or, “living all over again.”

10. “At a rally Thursday, the community came together to let their voices be heard, saying they no longer would tolerate gangs and were determined take back the streets.”.

This is a grand slam of phrases that are both clichés and falsisms.
Even if "came together" wasn't a cliché, clearly a quick canvassing of whatever neighborhood this is would reveal most people were at home playing video games and cooking dinner and only the small group of activists who called the TV station actually "came together."
“Let their voices be heard." By whom? Cliché.
“No longer would tolerate." Sadly, the truth is, we either never tolerated gangs or always did. Either way, it’s likely nothing's going to change now. Wish it would.
"Take back the streets." Don't even start.

And finally: Not something TV gets wrong, but something people get wrong about TV. Local television stations affiliate themselves with networks that provide them national news and entertainment. A local station, with very few exceptions, is not owned by the network, and of course it isn’t the network. It’s the local outlet for the network. So when people appear on the local NBC station, don’t say they appeared on NBC, unless they also appeared on the national news.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/fyr8tpS4IRs

Next time: Who the heck is Ishmael anyway?

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From the Grammar Police

November 13, 2022

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.

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.’”

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Segment 48: More questions of style

November 6, 2022

Readers: In a November 2021 segment, we discussed the concept of “style,” a question not so much of right or wrong, but rather “OK” vs. “better.” It’s a method by which institutions create rules for how to say certain things in a consistent way. We mentioned that we defer to the Associated Press’ “stylebook.” Here are more examples of style questions:

1. The struggling newspaper fired dozens of staffers.

A person let go for cause has been fired. A person let go because of budget cuts or because his/her job was eliminated has been laid off. “Laid off” is traumatic. But it isn't nearly as humiliating, or potentially scandalous, or most importantly, harmful to prospects for future employment, as getting fired. Make sure you're fair to a person by making the distinction.

2. We took a small boat to the cruise ship.

This is correct. Both are boats, but the two terms reflect the difference in size, especially when they are used in the same sentence and the context is obvious.

3. The woman was raped and her sister was sexually assaulted, while the niece was molested.

This gets into some delicate issues. As a rule, don’t say “rape” unless a person actually was penetrated. “Sexually battered” suggests an attack that is sexual and also causes injury. “Molested” implies just groping, which still is a crime, and a serious one in the case of a minor. “Sexually assaulted” is a good general term for a reporter to use if police are vague.

4. The man was extradited from the Indiana state prison back to Chicago to stand trial on the new murder charge, and his alleged accomplice was extradited from Fort Wayne to Indianapolis.

First one right. Second one wrong. Extradition is a formal process to move someone to another state to face criminal charges. It’s not correct when describing transferring people between locations in the same state.

5. Hundreds watched as a set of blasts shook the ground and the old hotel imploded.

An implosion primarily is a specific scientific event, mostly limited to vacuum tubes and unstable stars. Usage has allowed it to mean "to break down or fall apart from within." But the "Horribly Wrong" team says using it to describe a building demolition is just plain inaccurate. What you see when an old building crumbles is the building not imploding in, but rather just falling down. It’s a controlled collapse. Explosives are set off at key points, weakening the structure, and it collapses of its own weight.

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/VrE6aHhLHqE

Next time: Why do we pick on TV? Well, they just make it too darn easy.

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From the Grammar Police

October 30, 2022

These goofs are spooky!

Sounds scary in my book!

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

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Segment 47: That's just wrong!

October 23, 2022

Readers: Sometimes you hear a clever phrase or even a cliché, and, if you thought about it, you’d realize it just wasn’t correct. The Horribly Wrong team calls these “falsisms” (not a real word.) We’ve addressed some in previous posts. Here are more examples:

1. This is attorney Steve Pliseck. Call us for the best legal assistance.
This is? What is? If Steve’s assistant is pointing at him, she can say, “This is Steve Pliseck.” Otherwise, Steve needs to say, “I am Steve Pliseck.”

2. “My name is Sergeant John Smith.”
“My name is Jim Bean, general manager of Tulsa Ford.”
Are those really their names? Does it say “Sergeant John Smith” on his birth certificate? Is there a driver’s license that says “Jim Bean, general manager of Tulsa Ford?” No. their names are just John Smith and Jim Bean. How hard is it to say, “I’m Sergeant John Smith,” or “I’m Jim Bean, general manager of Tulsa Ford?“

3. It was the penultimate game of the “Ultimate Frisbee” tournament.
If you’re using “penultimate” as “greatest,” or “final,” you’re wrong. Penultimate means “next to last.”

4. Controlling their destiny. Controlling their fate.
Wrong, wrong wrong!!! Destiny is something that’s out of your control. Same thing with fate.

5. “For all intensive purposes, this election is over.”
Yeesh. How about, “all intents and purposes.” And don’t even use it correctly. It’s a brutal cliché.

6. Hockey experts agree Lebeau was a coaching whiz.
If you’re saying the guy was a wizard, short for that would be “wiz.” “Whiz” has to do with urinating. Common usage has defeated us on this one, so “whiz” has become mostly accepted. Discuss?

7. The police are in route.
“En route.”

8. My old girlfriend left me a momento.
Memento.

9. We dove in, irregardless of the danger.
“Regardless.”

10. “You're invited, Few Seats Available, Call Now!”
This is from an actual email sent out by a dermatologist hosting a seminar. Besides featuring not one, but two comma splices, and improper capitalizations, it’s vague about whether a few seats are available, or few seats are available. They don’t mean the same thing. The first is encouraging, the second a warning. Which was the good doctor’s intent?

11. "We'll slash Florida rebates by up to 60 percent."
Hmmm. Let’s look for someone who will give us the full rebate.

12. “Here, Here!”
Nope. It’s “Hear, hear.” According to masterclass.com, the phrase likely dates back to the 17th Century British Parliament, probably as a corruption of “Hear him! Hear him!” when noise in the chamber was drowning out a speaker making an important point.

13. The girl clinched her fist.
Nope. You clinch a deal. In this case, you want “clenched her fist.”

14. Don’t cast dispersions on our efforts!
The right word is “aspersions.” Dispersion: the action or process of distributing things or people over a wide area. Aspersion: an attack on the reputation or integrity of someone or something. (Thanks to loyal reader Dr. Baruch Kahana)

Watch this on video! https://youtu.be/qeTM-1-GWoE

Next time: More questions of style. And we don’t mean Ralph Lauren.

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SOMETHING WENT HORRIBLY WRONG!

A blog about better writing.

By Eliot Kleinberg

With Lou Ann Frala

We keep telling you. But do you listen?

In our first Grammar Police segment of 2023, *on Jan. 8, we showed some of the chronic goofs out there. We couldn’t fit them all in! Here are more. These are about money.***

How about a New Year’s resolution to shed those chronic goofs?!

WE’RE STARTING OUR THIRD YEAR!

Having been spotted far too often, the Grammar Police bring you a melange of misplaced modifiers!*

It’s our 50th segment!!!!!

We officially are in the holiday season. And the bad grammar gifts are arriving already.

And that’s finale!

Latest Posts

SOMETHING WENT HORRIBLY WRONG!

A blog about better writing.

By Eliot Kleinberg

With Lou Ann Frala

We keep telling you. But do you listen?

In our first Grammar Police segment of 2023, on Jan. 8, we showed some of the chronic goofs out there. We couldn’t fit them all in! Here are more. These are about money.

How about a New Year’s resolution to shed those chronic goofs?!

WE’RE STARTING OUR THIRD YEAR!

Having been spotted far too often, the Grammar Police bring you a melange of misplaced modifiers!*

It’s our 50th segment!!!!!

We officially are in the holiday season. And the bad grammar gifts are arriving already.

And that’s finale!

In our first Grammar Police segment of 2023, *on Jan. 8, we showed some of the chronic goofs out there. We couldn’t fit them all in! Here are more. These are about money.***