It’s not news to readers of Yahoo! News that the writers and editors frequently make mistakes, including these that appeared at the same time on the same page:
That is supposed to be “Star Wars,” of course. And the Barbie Dreamhouse is trademarked:
And so is Ping-Pong:
The common noun for the sport is “table tennis.”
So, you finally landed a job writing for a big, hot-shot Internet company. Your mother must be so proud to see what you’re producing for Yahoo! Shine! Unless, of course, she’s like my mother. In that case she’d be appalled to see that you don’t know compliment from complement and that you think pharaoh is a proper noun:
She’d be mortified to think that you put an apostrophe in the plural Kardashians:
She’d be ashamed to realize that you didn’t bother to research Wilson Phillips and Chynna Phillips — just so you got the spelling right:
If your mother is like mine, she’d be grateful that you have a job — and that this article doesn’t have a byline.
Now you can own a Kobe Bryant Scrabble jersey. Either a game-word jersey or a game-worn jersey. I can’t figure out which the writer for Yahoo! Sports’ “Prep Rally” means:
Couldn’t the writer take the time to proofread this headline? I guess that’s asking too much of someone who thinks mom should be capitalized (not when it’s preceded by his) and that spring is a proper noun (it isn’t).
You don’t have to be brilliant to know that some writers for Yahoo! Shine aren’t exactly geniuses — at least when it comes to trivial parts of their job, like being able to spell and write with accuracy.
Kaiser Permanente is apparently too difficult for this writer to spell — or even just Google:
She seems to think that the word the is part of a family name (it shouldn’t be capitalized) and that only one person in the family has a lawyer (the apostrophe should be after the S):
Ah! There’s that apostrophe again. This time it’s not there to show possession but to create a plural. Which, of course, is wrong:
The Nikolayevs live in California, so it’s a little odd that their son would be moved to a hospital 3,000 miles away in Stamford, Connecticut. You’d think he’d be taken to Stanford Hospital, which is about 2,950 miles closer to home. But a writer who thinks that Child Protectice Services is a real agency, probably thinks Stamford is in California.
So, she’s obviously convinced you can form the plural of a name with an apostrophe and an S, and she has no idea that when you’re referring to Mom, it gets a capital letter (although if she meant “the mom,” it doesn’t).
And smack-dab in the middle of the article is a link, that the writer gets wrong on two counts: a missing hyphen in 5-year-old and the miscapitalized Mensa — an organization for high-IQ folks. I don’t think this writer is a member.
Ever seen someone furl their brow? Me neither. Apparently the writer for Yahoo! News‘ “The Ticket” has:
I’ve seen people furrow their brow, which creates wrinkles. But furling a brow would roll it up, which has got to be painful.
Perhaps this makes sense to the writer, but it’s nonsense to me:
Did he mean “in shielding the public from the existence of aliens”? Because that’s altogether (entirely, completely, and utterly) different from what he wrote.
With the writer’s limited knowledge of English, it seems like nitpicking to mention that Congress, when referring to the U.S. government, is capitalized, but congressional isn’t:
Not sure how to capitalize a name? Don’t bother Googlin’ it! Just do what the writer for Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally” does:
No need to worry that one of the versions will be wrong; focus on the fact that one of them may be right. And don’t worry about misspelling difficult words like recipient. Your spell-checker will tell you if it’s wrong. And then you can do what this writer did: Ignore it!
Some names are just boring. What could possibly be interesting about a name like Larch or Ladd or Lee? What these names are more capital letters! LaRch, LaDd, and LeE. See how much better they look? Let’s get creative and add caps to any name, just like the editors for yahoo.com did:
The “world’s greatest dad” is David Laferriere. Bor-ing.
The “humble” Tater Tot, a trademarked product from Ore-Ida, get a lot humbler with the lowercase treatment from Yahoo! Shine:
Do the folks at Yahoo! News think that a Mexican Barbie is undeserving of a capital letter? Is that why they made her into a common noun?
If there were a punishment for not using the Shift key at the correct time, the editors for Yahoo! News would be serving 7 to 10 in the Grammar Slammer.
They’d get a citation just for not capitalizing church when it’s combined with Catholic:
Some Capitalization Cop would cite them for capitalizing senator when it doesn’t precede the name of the senator:
and for capitalizing cocaine:
Holy Moley! Do the editors not know that Holy Land is a proper noun?
At least the editors knew enough to capitalize Assad:
Unfortunately they didn’t know enough to not capitalize pro.
