More off-shored writing?

When I write that Yahoo! must be out-sourcing the writing of its content to third-world countries, I think I’m being sarcastic. After seeing this on yahoo.com, I think I may be accurate:

It seems more likely that a writer in Bamako, and not one in the United States, would not know that South is capitalized when referring to the southeast region of the U.S.

If the writers really work in the U.S., then you’d think they’d know how to capitalize Bay Area, especially since it is home to Yahoo! headquarters:

When you write about the Bay Area

Make sure to capitalize it.  A Yahoo! Sports blog treats it like a common noun:

The Bay Area—the nine counties around San Francisco—is a proper noun. Other areas in the U.S. are also proper nouns, including the South, the West, the Northeast, and Southern California.

Where to begin?

Sometimes I come across Web writing that is so full of errors that it defies categorization. Such is the case with this post on the Y! Live blog:

The voice of the writer is clear: breezy, hip, young, and unconcerned with the conventions of grammar. The overall impression is also clear: sloppy and so poorly written as to suggest a total disdain for language and the reader. Blogs can have an informal style that allows for slang and creative use of language. But when the blog represents a company– and not an individual–some level of literacy is expected.  

Misspellings, lack of subject-verb agreement, missing punctuation, typos–I’ve circled just the most egregious of the errors in this post. Here are a few:

• In the opening, the writer missed the commas around guys. When addressing the reader, you should set off the term of address with commas. If the sentence is short (like Hi guys!) you can safely omit the comma.
• This weeks broadcast needs an apostrophe (this week’s broadcast) as does next week’s show.
• The indefinite pronoun some requires a plural subject, although I believe the writer meant one, and not some.
• More safe should be safer.
• Riff raff should be spelled as one word: riffraff.
• Bay Area is a proper noun that should be capitalized.

If you’re interested, I’m sure you can identify the other slip-ups. As for me, I think I’m going to go lie down now.