At least they spelled Hillary Clinton correctly

There’s not much to positive to say about this article on Yahoo! Shine. But I give the writer props for spelling Hillary Clinton’s name correctly. But I gotta take off points for the expression “in that time” when it doesn’t refer to an actual time period. (The writer meant “since that time.”)

Any professional writer should know that the idiom is not “baited breath,” unless it involves earthworms. The idiom is “bated breath,” meaning “reduced or lessened breath” or a state of almost stopping breathing as a result of a strong emotion like fear.

No shots to the head here, and no headshots, which is what the writer meant:

I don’t believe it was Ms. Clinton’s BlackBerry that went viral, but a picture of her with a BlackBerry.

Twitter followers are usually of the human type:

Don’t you wonder if someone has people followers, what other kind of followers they also have? I know I do.

This calls for capital punishment

Someone could use a little civics lesson over at the Yahoo! front page:

The U. S. Congress is often referred to as Capitol Hill, which is the location of the U.S. Capitol (the building housing Congress) in the U.S. capital (which is Washington).

Lightening the load with lightning-fast speed

I wonder how many mistakes a writer for yahoo.com has to make before being fired. In some situations, someone could be terminated with lightning-fast speed, especially if they made a mistake like this:

If Yahoo! actually employed editors and proofreaders, removing weak writers could be lightening their load.

Don’t let the facts stand in your way

Those folks at Yahoo! Shine certainly have their priorities straight: Don’t worry about the facts, just get the article pushed out. So, when you read this headline, you might think that the Duchess of Cambridge attended a coronation because, well, that’s what it says:

She didn’t. She attended a ceremony for the anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

Of course, it’s normal for us regular folks to notice that the Shine writers are also above using punctuation:

… except when they use it incorrectly:

Again with the coronation! Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was not even born when the queen was crowned:

When she’s not screwing up facts and punctuation, she’s adding an extraneous word and using the wrong word:

But wait! There’s more! There’s the randomly capitalized duchess and the contraction it’s where the possessive pronoun its should be:

Just because the facts are wrong, the words are wrong, the punctuation is wrong, don’t judge.

Senior citizen files sues

Can’t you imagine what went through the Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally” writer’s head when trying to come up with a headline? “Should I say ‘senior citizen files suit’ or ‘senior citizen sues’? Oh, crap, I’ll use ‘em both”:

Any writer who thinks that’s OK would probably also think passersby was two words:

and that the possessive pronoun its requires an apostrophe:

Were they making a headdress?

Where were the seeds being sewn? On an Native American headdress?

Perhaps the seeds were actually sown, and the writer for Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally” is homophonically challenged.

What were they looking for?

What do mail sexual suitors look for? X-rated letters? Copies of Playboy? Adult DVDs sent in plain brown wrappers?

Someone should ask the writer for Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally.” He’s just happens to be male.

It happens every day

Well, you don’t see this every day:

Actually, you do see mistakes every day on Yahoo! Sports‘ “Prep Rally.” They are a common, ordinary, everyday occurrence.

What do you have against letter carriers?

What does this dad have against letter carriers? According to Yahoo! News‘ “The Sideshow,” the father of new twin girls thinks letter carriers will have a dilemma in the future:

Maybe the dad was referring to the people who make suits for postal workers. Or maybe the reference was to anyone in a suit of armor. Or maybe the writer, who is male, is just really, really careless.

What it’s known for

Yahoo! Movies is known as much for its errors as it is for its theater listings: