First, it’s a first lady

From Yahoo! Shine, we learn a lot about first ladies. And a lot more about the writer.

First, we learn that the writer has no idea when to hit the Shift key. The unofficial title first lady is not a proper noun:

And neither is administration, even when it is preceded by a president’s name. And there is no National Library. The correct name is the National First Ladies’ Library.

This writer needs help. She might find some aid in a dictionary, which would tell her an aide is a person:

Oh, lord. Again with a National Library, followed by a couple of pretty funny typos:

Even if there weren’t a typo here, this would still be wrong; Mrs. Kennedy did not win a prize for designing an entire issue of Vogue:

Golly, how did this slip past the spell-checker? Oh, yeah. Yahoo! writers don’t believe in spell-checkers. They believe in looking “real” by leaving in all the misspellings:

If you can have 215-odd appearances, why not 215 even appearances? Makes sense:

To a degree, this is correct; it’s just not a master’s degree:

You can learn a lot about America’s first ladies from Yahoo!. But you’ll learn a lot more about Yahoo!’s disdain for correct English and accuracy.

Would that be hearing aids?

Would that be hearing aids in the photos from bin Laden’s compound? The reporter for Yahoo! News‘ “The Cutline” leaves us guessing:

By the way, if there were actually people who worked for bin Laden were involved, they would be aides.

I won’t even venture a guess

It’s pretty clear that there’s an unnecessary hyphen in antidepressants. What’s not clear to me in this article on Yahoo! News‘ “The Lookout”? I’m afraid to guess what “sleep aides” are, but they sound like “professional” ladies or maybe hypnotists.

I really don’t know if this use of wrote is really trendy, but I think that attributed would work better, without ambiguity. It’s easy to guess that predessors is supposed to be predecessors. And a quick Google search would tell the writer that the post is vice chief of staff, without the hyphen:

So, my unanswered question is: How do errors like this happen on a supposed news site? And why should I trust anything this reporter writes? Oh, I guess that’s two questions.

Someone needs a writing aid

Will someone please come to the aid of the writer of Yodel Anecdotal, Yahoo!’s corporate blog? Please?

An aide is an assistant or helper. The writer could use one of those, too.

Someone should come to her aid

The writer of this article on Yahoo! Shine could use a little help. There’s nothing grammatically wrong here: 

The problem? The manufacturer of the blocks she describes doesn’t make blocks in maple. If she had written mahogany, then that would be correct.

Someone needs to let her know that an aide is an assistant:

Any volunteers?