Something’s afoot and it’s not good

It’s not the worst typo a writer can make, but it’s an easy one to spot if you’re writing about Ray Halbritter:

Maybe the writer needs some assistance in the proofreading department:

And editor who knows that either is singular and it’s is the contraction for it has would certainly help:

But something is afoot at Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally”: There’s no proofreader or editor at hand.

Give up the reins

If you make mistakes like those made by the author of Yahoo! Sports‘ “Puck Daddy,” you should consider letting someone take the reins and edit your work:

If you don’t know that a monarch reigns and a horse is controlled by reins, you need a little editorial support.

If you’re writing an article about Glen Gulutzan, the editor might let you know if you misspell his name:

And if that editor knows that whom is the objective case of who (and is therefore correct as the object of a preposition), hand over the reins. Just be sure that the editor knows that when a subject is joined by or, the verb (which should be is) agrees with the noun closer to it:

One of these is wrong

Let’s hope that one of these words on Yahoo! News is a typo, because I’d hate to think a professional scribe thinks both words are correct:

Splitting up a nonprofit

Is there a nonprofit organization that might help the folks working at the keyboards at Yahoo! News? Maybe the Internet giant would accept free proofreading services if a nonprofit suggests it:

Here comes more of the same

I wasn’t going to mention this mistake on the home page Yahoo! Movies — it’s likely just a typo, right?

And then I saw this on Yahoo! Movies and figured maybe the Einsteins who write these captions really are grammatically challenged:

All I needed was one more example of a subject and verb mismatch to convince I was right:

“Men in Black 4″ is the title of a movie. It is singular and takes a singular verb like, oh, say, maybe comes.

This may not loner be your best option

Looking for some well-written articles about odd happenings around the world? Yahoo! News‘ “The Sideshow” has the quirky news stories; it’s the “well-written” part that’s missing:

I have no idea if “at least one” official has said something or multiple officials have said something. I also have no idea what they said.

And then I stopped reading

You can tell a lot about an article by its first paragraph. At least I think you can. After reading this opening paragraph from Yahoo! Sports‘ “From the Marbles,” I stopped reading:

I really don’t know if the rest of the article is as bad as this. But when a single sentence contains at least one typo (and maybe two) and a violation of the subject-verb agreement rule, chances are the rest of the article isn’t going to be an improvement.

Moves mimics stars?

Did you read this on yahoo.com?

Did you notice that the writer tried to tell us that some teen’s moves are like some NBA stars — not like NBA stars’ moves, but like the actual athletes themselves? And did you notice that the writer didn’t know that moves is plural and mimics, the verb, isn’t?

One in four people thinks this is correct

… and they’re all writers and editors for the Yahoo! front page:

The subject of the verb suffer is one, a singular noun requiring a singular verb — suffers.

That sinking feeling

Whenever I read something like this, I get a sinking feeling:

Is the writer for Yahoo! News‘ “Who Knew?” a product of the American public school system? Have our educational standards sunk so low that high school graduates can no longer match a verb to its subject or a pronoun to its antecedent?