Written by a so-called professional?

Even so-called professional writers make grammatical, punctuation, and spelling mistakes — especially if they work for Yahoo!. Take this example from Yahoo! News‘ “The Sideshow,” where the writer believes that quotation marks belong after the expression “so-called”:

They don’t. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “Quotation marks are not used to set off descriptions that follow expressions such as so-called and self-styled, which themselves relieve the writer of responsibility for the attribution: his so-called foolproof method (not ‘foolproof method’).“

That’s a common mistake. On Yahoo!, there are a lot of common mistakes, like failing to match a pronoun with its antecedent (the word it refers to). And failing to hyphenate modern-day when it’s used as an adjective, misspelling Flintstones, and best of all using peddles instead of pedals:

This is more akin to a careless error:

And any decent spell-checker would have flagged Minnealpolis as a misspelling:

But for Yahoo!’s so-called journalists, spell-checking is optional. Heck, it’s not just optional, it’s nonexistent.

Just to be sure we understand that Jeff Stone is a Republican state representative, the writer tells us in two slightly different ways, each containing its own errors:

If you think I’m the only person who is appalled by this professional writer’s ignorance, you’d be wrong. Here’s one comment left by a reader:

“using peddles underneath their seats”
“PEDDLES”???? Jeezuz Joe Bob. My 6-year-old can write better than this. Apparently they’re trying to solve the unemployment problem by giving illiterate idiots jobs writing “news” articles. Sheesh.

That store ain’t goin’ nowhere

You can’t buy Kim Kardashian’s shower invitation at a stationary store (which most stores are) — or even a stationery store. At least that’s the message I got from this photo caption on Yahoo! Shine:

And then I through up my hands

I read this on Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally” and almost threw up. Instead, I just threw up my hands in frustration:

A new one

I thought I’d seen every homophonic error possible on Yahoo!, but I was wrong. The “journalist” for Yahoo! News‘ “The Ticket” came up with a new, creative, and totally hilarious way to spell leis:

Oh, that Hawaii School for Girls? It’s not in La Pietra, which is also not in Hawaii. It’s La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls.

What was the ring made of?

Just what kind of engagement ring was it? What made the genius writer at the Yahoo! front page think that it might float away?

This is the only kind of ring I can think of that might float:

But it’s a really cheesy engagement ring.

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.

When right is wrong

See that guy on the left in this picture from Yahoo! Shine? That’s Gordon Ramsay.

See the photo caption under the picture? That’s wrong.

You should have stayed in school

If I were a staid, buttoned-up type, I would tell this Yahoo! Shine writer, “Dear, please go back to school and learn a little more about writing in actual English.” Perhaps she would learn the difference between the homophones staid (which means “characterized by sedate dignity”) and stayed (which is the past tense of stay). But I’m just not that type. Instead, I’d like to tell her that this sucks:

Would that be the 1920s?

Keeping up with the times and spotting fashion trends? That’s not exactly what the editors at Yahoo! Shine are doing right now. They’re nearly a century late with advice on how to dress for work in the 1920s:

That’s pretty much the dumbest use of an apostrophe that I’ve ever seen. The apostrophe indicates the omission of a letter (or two) or a digit (or two). In this case, I’m guessing the only thing missing here is the writer’s knowledge of punctuation.

Tired of writing in English?

Sometimes, when I’m writing photo captions for Yahoo! News‘ “The Lookout” I get really, really bored. So just for fun I’ll start writing in English and then switch to la française. N’est-ce pas drôle?