You think you knew

The writer for “Primetime in No Time” on Yahoo! TV thought he knew the correct word, but he was wrong:

New ways of proofreading needed

Someone working on Yahoo! News‘ “The Cutline” needs new ways to proofread:

Looking like you knew

Who knew that mistakes like this happen?

Homophonic errors are nothing new on Yahoo! Shine.

Possibly the worst writing on the Web

You might overlook the occasional typo and misspelling in a high school newspaper, but when a barrage of errors appears in an article written by a senior features editor for a major Web player, you might be aghast. I know I was when I read this article on Yahoo! Shine, which might possibly be the worst writing by a professional. The number and severity of errors is astounding.

The mess starts in the first sentence: It’s not a proper noun, so why capitalize loafers?

The pronoun should be their (its antecedent is the plural mainstays) and there shouldn’t be a space separating 21st:

It’s Lilly Pulitzer!

I bet the preppy handbook didn’t contain as many errors as this single sentence, which seems to be lacking something called punctuation:

I can’t understand how this woman is allowed to publish this crap:

I wish I knew where I could get a job as a writer where quality is unimportant:

Yikes! Who doesn’t know how to Ms. Kardashian’s name? Not this “senior features editor”:

Double yikes! Polo is a trademark. It needs a capital letter. Every time.

If it’s not a verb, follow-up is hyphenated (or one word, according to some dictionaries):

This writer has a talent for cramming in the most errors in the fewest words. How do you omit a word and use the wrong word (it should be it’s) in such a small space?

Can’t she make up her mind? Isn’t there a dictionary or in-house style guide she can consult to choose between a t-shirt and a T-shirt?

The brand is Lacoste, a proper noun:

Crimey. My advice to this writer is to avoid French words, because misspelling nouveau just makes you look dumb. And try using a hyphen once in a while to avoid looking like a washed-up hack:

Are there any other names she can mangle? It’s Bret Easton Ellis who wrote “American Psycho,” a title deserving of italics or quotation marks:

I have no idea what this Engrish is supposed to be:

So, when she does try to use a hyphen, it’s wrong; when she uses a trademark like Polo, it’s wrong:

It’s still Lilly Pulitzer, goddammit. Try looking at the photo credit for a hint!

Another piece of amateurish writing, unworthy of a high school newspaper from Shine. Awesome.

Sorry. I don’t believe a word you’ve written

There are so many errors in this article on Yahoo! Shine that it has no credibility with me. But it didn’t take the misspellings, grammatical gaffes, and typos to convince me that it’s not a credible source. All it took was this paragraph:

No, it’s not the inclusion of conducting instead of conducted. It’s the name of the organization that conducted the survey. It is the National Campaign to PREVENT Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. Of all the boneheaded mistakes a writer could make, changing the name of an organization that tries to prevent teen pregnancy to one that supports it has to be the worst.

In lesser crimes against the language, there’s the misused new in the place of its homophone knew:

The typo here (how did that get by a spell checker?) and the redundant others people:

Finally, the incorrect these, the missing are, the missing comma after Hey, and the lowercase mom and dad:

All nitpicky mistakes in the shadow of one monumental error.

Tom Cruise: Barely new

This blog entry from Yahoo! Shine is about Tom Cruise, who proclaimed his love for a woman he barely new:

New?  Did the writer actually keyboard that?

All-new Coffey going home?

This excerpt from a blog on Yahoo! TV about “Nashville Star” contestant Coffey confused me. I knew there was an error in there somewhere: