Let’s learn from this

Here are some simple lessons we can all learn (or be reminded of) from the gaffes on Yahoo! TV‘s “Daytime in No Time.”

A misspelling and misplaced commas: A spell-check would have identified the misspelled liaison. It appears on many lists of the Top 100 Misspelled Words. In the U.S. a comma goes before the closing quotation mark:

A misplaced apostrophe: If a plural noun doesn’t end in S (like men, women, children), form the possessive by adding an apostrophe and an S (in that order):

A missing apostrophe: Let’s take a look at the contraction let’s. It’s short for let us. It’s the only common contraction that consists of a verb and a pronoun with a missing letter. But it needs an apostrophe:

Misplaced correlative conjunction: The pair either… or is a correlative conjunction that joins like words, phrases, or clauses. The collection of words on each side of or should be the same part of speech: If there’s a verb before the or, there should be a verb after it. If there’s a clause before it, there should be a clause after it:

This could be corrected by either this rewording:

they either had too much free time or just love to dance

or this rewording:

either they have too much free time or they just love to dance

When it’s its it should be it’s and vice versa

It’s not hard: it’s means “it is” or “it has”; its means “belonging to it.” Apparently, though, it’s too difficult for Yahoo! staffers, who often confuse the contraction and the possessive pronoun.

Here are just a few examples you’ll find around the Yahoo-sphere. Wherever you see a red circle around its, it should be it’s. And if the circle surrounds it’s, the word should be its.

From Yahoo! Movies:

and

and

From Yahoo! Shine:

and

and

From Yahoo! TV‘s “Daytime in No Time”:

From Yahoo! omg!:

and Yahoo! News‘ “The Ticket”:

Has anybody EVER proofread this?

Has someone proofread this? I mean, someone with at least a passing familiarity with English grammar? I ask because it’s clear that the writer for Yahoo! TV‘s “Primetime in No Time” doesn’t know that the past participle of sing is sung:

Plural mistakes

What is it about the apostrophe that is so appealing to writers that they want to put it in every plural word they write? Case in point: An article from Yahoo! TV‘s “Primetime in No Time” where the writer misuses an apostrophe here:

and here:

and four times here:

And then I fell asleep

Maybe you shouldn’t take that codeine cough syrup just before you’re supposed to write a blurb for the home page of Yahoo! TV:

You know? Cuz it makes you all sleepy and such.

The Santa Clause without Tim Allen

“The Santa Clause” was a popular holiday movie starring Tim Allen. This is not that Santa Clause: 

It’s just a homophonic gaffe from the writer of Yahoo! TV‘s “Primetime in No Time.” Hey, it could be worse. He could have called him Santa Claws.

That’s a whole different Excalibur

There are a whole lot of  mistakes for your reading pleasure on Yahoo! TV. Let’s start with the remnants of this sentence and the mismatched pronoun its and its plural antecedent remnants:

This is a whole ‘nother spelling of Mykelti Williamson’s name:

If the writer meant that Excalibur is a whole new kind of place, she’d be right because Excalibur isn’t a place (except for the hotel in Vegas), it’s actually a sword:

And that’s a whole ‘nother Anjelica Huston and Brian d’Arcy James:

Awkward!

It’s an incredibly awkward typo on Yahoo! TV:

Liev and let live!

Live from Yahoo! TV! It’s nearly Liev Schreiber!

Apostrophobia?

Is it fear of that little punctuation character that drives Yahoo! staffers to misuse the apostrophe? They use it to form the plural of words, like this from Yahoo! TV‘s “Primetime in No Time”:

They avoid using it in a contraction like it’s:

And fear it in possessives, even when it’s required in headlines like this one from Yahoo! News‘ “Trending Now”:

Apostrophobia? Or simply a case of carelessness and indifference?