What was the writer for yahoo.com thinking?
Putting a hyphen in Triple Crown (even when it’s used to modify a noun) is like hyphenating a name. You wouldn’t write “Tom-Hanks movie” or “Barack-Obama speech,” would you? Oh, I guess if you’re a Yahoo! staffer you probably would.
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.
It’s not unusual to make a teensy, weensy mistake when you’re writing. A simple typo, like typing it instead of is, is the kind of error most readers can overlook. But there are some mistakes that readers can’t overlook and can’t forgive. One of those is misspelling the name of your subject and doing it in a headline. That’s what the writer did on Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally” when writing about a team from McDonough School:
If only there were a way the writer could see the name of the high school — like a photo of the team wearing jerseys with the school’s name. Wait, wait! This article is accompanied by a photo and this time the writer actually spelled McDonogh correctly. Unfortunately, he misspelled Baltimore — but it’s not his fault. He didn’t have a picture of Baltimore in front of him:
But that’s just a typo, which any good proofreader would have spotted. But this is just an out-and-out error:
Perhaps it’s time the writer handed the reins over to a real editor or proofreader — one who knows that a monarch reigns and a horse is controlled with reins.
It’s one of the simplest rules of punctuation, and yet one of the most frequently ignored by the writers and editors at Yahoo!. This time the offense appears on the Yahoo! front page, where millions of people can point and laugh:
The rule is simple: A question mark goes before a closing quotation mark if it is part of the quoted matter. In this case, it’s not. The title of the movie is not “Bling Ring?” The entire phrase is the question: Real-life ‘Bling Ring’?
I don’t want to even think about where the writer’s head was when he wrote this headline for Yahoo! Sports‘ “Big League Stew”:
The expression is “head over heels” and it means “to roll, as in a somersault.”
You know what would be better than this from Yahoo! Screen‘s “Daily Shot”? If the writer had taken the time to learn how to spell Steve Carell’s name. And if the writer had taken the time to figure out how to write a link:
You’d think that someone working for one of the biggest Internet companies in the world would know how to do both.
Looking for a slightly used shirt? A well-worn pair of trousers? If you’re not to proud to steal, you can get it free by raiding a closet. And Yahoo! Shopping suggests you raid your father’s closet:
Of course, if you merely want to see the kinds of clothing he prefers, you could just peek in his closet.
I don’t know if the writer or editor is responsible for this headline on Yahoo! TV, but whoever wrote this shows a total disregard for accuracy:
The guy’s name is Ricky Gervais.
Anyone who lived in the States in the ’70s and owned a television is familiar with this ditty:
My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R.
My bologna has a second name, it’s M-A-Y-E-R.
Oh I love to eat it every day. If you ask me why I’ll say,
‘Cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A.
So, I’m guessin’ that the writer for Yahoo! Shine grew up in Somalia or Djibouti or Mumbai or some place where they’re unlikely to eat Oscar Mayer meats or see the Wienermobile:
How great a job is this!? You write about shoes for Yahoo! Shopping and you don’t have to know anything about shoes:
Well, maybe you do have to know something. You just don’t have to know how to spell the brand Skechers.
