Why would you read any more?

This is the first paragraph of an article from Yahoo! News‘ “The Lookout”:

Why would anyone bother to read any more?

Which is worse?

Which is worse? Dropping a word:

or adding a redundant one?

Just ask the readers of the Yahoo! front page, the most visited page on the Internet.

And then I wrote and and

OMG! Could this be any more obvious?

Where was the proofreader before this was published? Oh, yeah, Yahoo! omg! doesn’t have proofreaders.

Writing with precision accuracy, precisely accurate

Johnny Manziel can throw a football with precision. Which is like saying he can throw a football accurately. So, why the heck did the editor for Yahoo! front page feel we had to know he throws with precision accuracy?

I guess that’s to distinguish his accuracy from imprecision accuracy.

That would be where you’d find cities

Most — if not all — cities are located in urban areas. But in case you forgot that, the editors for the Yahoo! front page have provided a handy little reminder:

The American Heritage Dictionary tells us that urban means “of, relating to, or located in a city.”

Do you get this?

Can you explain how a misspelling of ricochet gets past a spell-checker? Or how “impact upon himself” is better than “hit him”?

It’s a small part of the fun on Yahoo! News‘ “The Sideshow,” where the writer helpfully points out that 4:30am occurred in the morning:

I don’t get what this is supposed to be, do you?

I don’t get why the writer thinks “fallen trees have long been a risk.” Fallen trees aren’t nearly as much of a risk as falling trees:

I don’t get it: How does a self-respecting writer produce mistakes like these? How does an Internet giant like Yahoo! publish them?

Trying to figure out the news

If you’re looking for the best news coverage on events in North Korea, you’ll want to skip Yahoo! News. I’m still trying to figure out what this is all about:

More mystery writing

It’s another mystery for you, the reader, to solve on Yahoo! Shine:

Is a word missing? Are there too many words?

Thank you, Captain Obvious

In case you harbored any doubts as to the location of Chicago homicides, the kind editors at Yahoo! News offer the facts:

What could be wrong with this?

It’s not hard to see what’s wrong in the opening paragraphs of this article on Yahoo! Shine:

Of course, we all know that the word duchess isn’t capitalized unless it’s part of the full title, like “Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.” And we can all spot the missing word before “Kate Middleton.” (And by “all” I mean everyone in the English-speaking world except the writers and editors for Yahoo!.)

What could possibly be wrong with this — besides the name of the doctor? He’s Stephen Greenberg and he’s a New York-based doctor, who probably knows you don’t need both a dollar sign and the slangy “bucks”:

So, here we have the writer who again demonstrates her inability to copy a simple name and her ability to screw up a simple fact:

That quote isn’t from Dr. Greenblatt’s receptionist — or even Dr. Greenberg’s receptionist — it’s from Dr. Greenberg’s patient.

At least she got the doctor’s name right, but the name of the hospital (it’s Lenox Hill Hospital) wrong:

Other than getting the facts wrong, capitalizing words indiscriminately, omitting a word or two, neglecting punctuation, and adding a redundant word or two, this article is perfect!