File this under “WTF”

Some writing is so bad that it defies explanation. This article on Yahoo! Shine falls into that category.

It starts with some really talented fish. I don’t know how they do it, but a bunch of random people can put the feet in a tank of fish, and the fish will nibble on your feet:

Apparently you don’t even have to be in the same state or even the same room as the fish.

The writer makes a nice try with capitalizing stateside; unfortunately, it’s wrong:

And in the worst writing I’ve encountered in a long time, the writer illustrates the value of proofreading:

File this mess under “WTF.”

Predator? I thought you said editor

What can a writer do when he or she discovers that an experienced editor lives down the street?  Take advantage of the proximity! Maybe the editor knows how to write a complete sentence without switching person and could save the writer the embarrassment  suffered by the constructor of this sentence on Yahoo! Shine:

Celine Dion can expect more

Celine Dion is expecting her second child. If she’s reading the Yahoo! Shine article about her pregnancy, she can also expect a few grammatical goofs resulting in a mysterious sentence and some general hilarity.

This mystery of this sentence could be cleared up by removing a word:

Sorry, but the hyphens here are just wrong:

If you’re using an age as a noun (like, “the 25-year-old”) or an adjective (“a 25-year-old woman”), give it two hyphens; but “years old” goes hyphen-free.

The hilarity? It’s here:

I haven’t had children in their late 30s or 40s — yet. They’re much younger than that. The problem with this sentence arises because the writer (a so-called “professional”) changes person, from the second person (“you”) to the third person (“their”) and the reader naturally assumes the antecedent of “their” is “children.”

Who’s getting the attention?

He deserves the attention, but Yahoo! Shine recommends you give it to them:

Who the heck is “them”?

Mix-and-match persons

Starting off with too many words, this post from the editors of Yahoo! News moves on to a change in person:

No, it’s not a transsexual thing. It’s a case of writing about “users” (which is third person, grammatically speaking) and switching to “you” (which is second person).

It’s not good news

I’m sorry to be the one to say this, but I must. The blog Yahoo! Profiles News is just not good. It may contain useful information, but with the number of errors it displays, who can trust it?

Here are just a few examples: The use of a hyphen instead of a dash is a relatively minor but annoying problem. But the inability to distinguish between a singular noun (like parenthesis) and its plural (parentheses) does not reflect well on the writer and his or her employer:

A simple hyphen would make right hand right, and changing your contact card to a contact card would make the sentence actually understandable:

It’s such a common mistake on Yahoo! that I’m surprised someone hasn’t told the writers there that it’s is not a possessive pronoun:

The subject of this sentence is singular, and its verbs should be, too:

And finally, I’m altogether confused by the use and placement of all together here:

It makes no sense to me

Sometimes I read a single paragraph on the Web that is so confused and confusing that I can’t list all the problems with it in a few sentences. Sometimes those paragraphs, like this one, appear on Yahoo! Shine:

I think there’s an extra word in the first sentence. Or maybe an extra word and a missing word. I know the period belongs inside the parentheses in the second sentence. And I can guess what the author meant by “we’ll regain since school let out.” It probably means “we’ll regain that we lost since school let out.” But why start out writing in the first person (using our, I, and we) and switch to the second person (you and your)? It makes no sense to me.

Singles will help you find a mate

It’s great that single folks will help you increase your chances of finding a mate:

Maybe it’s only fitting that a dating tip from Yahoo! Personals would change person, from the third person (“singles”) to the second person (“your”). And the extra word doesn’t help this tangled mess.