Back in the day of newspapers that printed news on paper, hordes of reporters hoarded notepads, number 2 pencils, and confidential sources. Now in the day of the Interwebs, what does the press hoard? That’s the question I’m left with after reading this:
I’m guessin’ that over at Yahoo! Shine it’s not dictionaries.
When you find a horrific homophonic error in the second sentence of an article, perhaps you should take it as a sign to stop reading. That’s the advice I’d give to anyone who ventures into the world of Yahoo! Shine. The hordes of people who stumble on this article will be disappointed:
In a serious article about a tragic incident, the writer gets careless with an extra word here:
and some very mixed up words there:
I think I know what you’re feeling about this common error: Depression. Fear for the future of the English language.
And this little mistake isn’t going to make you feel any better:
What do young swimmers hoard? I have no idea, and neither does the writer for Yahoo! Shine:
A hoard is a hidden supply or cache. A large group or swarm is a horde. So, she didn’t learn that in school. Did she learn anything about chemistry in school? Like how to capitalize pH?
Did she learn that the names of the days of the week are capitalized?
I guess not. I wonder what other errors she’s hoarding and when she’ll drop them on the public.
Clearly there are lots of homophonous errors on Yahoo! Shine, and this is just one more:
The hoards of Crocs devotees are Crocs; the multitude of Crocs devotees is a horde.
Whoever thinks that this is correct, please call the lead editor at Yahoo! Shine; I think they have a writing job for you:
See, Shine doesn’t require that writers actually be familiar with the English language and grammar. If you think you’ll sound more intelligent and educated by using whom instead of who and whomever instead of whoever, you might fit right in. Never mind that the correct word is whoever (because it’s the subject of the verb); whomever just sounds so much brainier.
If you don’t think there’s a difference between two words that sound alike (but are spelled differently and have different meanings), then you should join the hordes of Shine fans, who seem to be oblivious to mistakes like this:
And if you think any lady looks chic shopping at Target, apply now to Shine. But if you think there’s a word missing that totally changes the meaning of this sentence, you may be too smart for the job:
What do marauding zombies hoard? Human brains?
Is it possible that the senior editor for Yahoo! Shine has mistaken hoard (which a secret supply or cache) with a horde (a large group or crowd)?
It doesn’t matter if your subject is compelling, your words are clever, or your opinions are controversial. Factual faux pas, grammatical gaffes, and punctuation problems can suck the life out of your writing. And your readers will think it just sucks. Readers are forgiving of a typo or two. But more than that? Well, you be the judge. Here’s an example written by the senior features editor for Yahoo! Shine. Taken individually, the goofs are easy to overlook, but collectively they suck the life out of the article.
It starts with a missing word and a misquote. According to the original source the teen said she was “part vampire and part werewolf.”
It goes on to misspell the name of Jonathon Sharkey, who’s a Tampa native (without a hyphen). Proving that her knowledge of punctuation is deficient, she misplaces a comma (which should go before the quotation mark) and adds one too many hyphens in “16-year-old girl”:
There’s more misplaced punctuation, an arbitrarily capitalized vampire, a misspelled Rod Ferrell, and some nonsense about Mr. Ferrell’s being charged after his trial. Generally, the charges come before the trial:
Again, he’s Mr. Ferrell. A goofy metaphor is kinda sucky. Generally one adds fuel to a fire; I have no idea how fuel affects a fact.
There’s no reason to capitalize vampire here:
And there’s two hyphens missing and an incorrect comma in this snippet:
Whoa! Has she been watching too many TV programs on hoarders? That word just makes no sense in this context:
The word she should have used is hordes.
Belly dancers usually wear some sort of bells, so I guess they could be belling dancers:
Whew! Reading that really drained me. I guess you could say it sucked.
Some writers deserve recognition for their great writing. Piper Weiss, the senior features editor for Yahoo! Shine, is not one of them. She has earned, however, the distinction of being one of the few professional writers (maybe the only professional writer) to make three homophonic errors in a single article. Without further ado (or “adieu,” as she would write), they are:
Bares for bears. Unless the brainiac writer meant “uncovers.” But that would make no sense.
Hoards for hordes. This is a stretch since, really, neither word is correct, though hordes is closer to her implied meaning. A hoard is a supply of something stored up and often hidden. A horde refers to people in a mob or crowd. So, either one pretty much sucks in this context, but I’m calling it a homophonic error:
Sight for site. Just because she writes for a site, we can’t assume she can spell the word. Good thing she doesn’t work for a rotogravure.
There are little mistakes and big mistakes. And then there are the mistakes made by Yahoo! Shine‘s senior features editor. They tend to be really big, stupid mistakes.
This misplaced period is one I’d classify as a little mistake. The period belongs before the closing parenthesis because the words inside the parentheses form a complete sentence:
I’m still trying to figure out what screaming fans hoard. Autographs? Photos of the royals?
Maybe the editor has been watching too many episodes of “Hoarding: Buried Alive.” Maybe she has a limited grasp of English, and can’t tell the difference between hoard and horde and eke and leak. Maybe she’s just an idiot.
She’s made up a term! Good for her! Now all she has to do is make up a consistent spelling for it:
There’s some reference to Freddie Mercury’s band, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense in this context:
If she meant the woman who wears the crown in England, then she should have written queen. It’s not a proper noun unless it directly precedes the queen’s name.
Mistakes, big and small and stupid. You’ll find them every day on Shine.
Was it a swarm of paintings in a garage? Or a hoard? A homophonic error and a grammatical gaffe spice up this excerpt from Yahoo! News‘ “The Lookout”:
