Your mother would be so proud

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.

Not a Mensa member?

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.

Fellow editors are stunned

Anyone reading the Yahoo! front page would be stunned to see this:

Let me correct myself: Anyone reading the Yahoo! front page for more than a day wouldn’t be surprised to see that mistake.

Confused by possessive characters

Confused? You’re not the only one. The editor for Yahoo! Screen couldn’t figure out where the apostrophe goes: before or after the S? Let’ put it before and after!

Taking the charitable view

I’m calling this a typo on the Yahoo! front page, even though in my heart I think that the writer really believes that this is the plural of fisherman:

Correcting a movie title

If you think a movie title is missing a punctuation mark, would you correct it? If you’re a writer for Yahoo! Movies, you might add an apostrophe, thinking you’re smarter than the movie’s producers:

Of course, you would be wrong.

Kennedy’s back or Kennedys back?

Are you as confused as I am about this headline on Yahoo! News’ “Who Knew”?

Does this mean that the Kennedys have risen again and that Kennedys are back in Congress? Or that the Kennedys have risen and a Kennedy is back in Congress? The only thing I’m sure of is that the writer has no idea how to use an apostrophe, how to form the plural of a name, and that the U.S. legislative body is Congress, with a big C.

Don’t bother with apostrophes

Things would go much better for the writer for Yahoo! Sports‘ “Dr. Saturday” if she’d just forget she ever heard of the apostrophe. The poor gal has no idea when to use one. Here’s a hint: Do not use an apostrophe to form a plural, like SUVs:

or players:

The only time an apostrophe is used in a plural is to avoid confusing the reader, such as forming the plural of a single letter. So, the Oakland A’s is okie-dokie, but SUV’s isn’t.

Taking no chances

Imagine you’re a professional writer working on the Yahoo! front page. You’re not well trained in English grammar. In fact, you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. You know, for example, that an apostrophe is required to form a possessive. And you think there’s an S required, too. But does it go — before or after the apostrophe? Here’s your solution:

Yep, if you’re unsure, put an S both before and after the apostrophe.

Back to the first grade

After failing to get four words in the correct order and failing to spell Grammys correctly (hint: there’s no apostrophe involved), the writer for Yahoo! Music flunks first-grade arithmetic: