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

Writing gaffes elicit laughs

Ha! It’s just too, too funny that there is a so-called senior editor working for Yahoo! Shine who gets paid to write this:

Mistakes like that can elicit guffaws, eye-rolls, or deep depression. I prefer to see the humor in a huge company like Yahoo! throwing money at a writer who probably hasn’t benefited from a high school education. 

There’s nothing wrong about this, unless you feel that a dollar sign and the word dollars is a tad redundant. Personally, I think it’s hilarious:

I don’t think women are allowed to keep their kid’s stuff — that would piss off a lot of kids. Perhaps they should just keep their kid stuff. Either way, it’s pretty funny:

Little League is a proper noun, but seeing it in lowercase gives me the giggles:

Again with the dollar sign and dollars! Too funny! Really. And if you’re referring to the auction house, it should be Christie’s:

I have no clue as to how you take a noun like jailbait and create a meaningful verb. Really, you don’t. It makes no sense. And neither does the hyphen in con artists. And do men pack a teddy bear or multiple teddy bears? The answer is locked inside the head of this genius comedic writer:

This is just a missing hyphen, but I think the minimalist punctuation is funny:

A typo? Hilarious. A misplaced both is amusing for both girls and boys:

OK, so how many mistakes can a writer make in three words? (It’s kinda like a riddle. And I love riddles.) There’s the unnecessary commas, the missing space, and worst still, the undercapitalized John DeVore. I think that’s four!

In this side-splitting article, it’s only fitting that the writer include a totally incomprehensible (but hilarious!) statement comparing a man with a prized possession or maybe prized possessions. Or something else.

Tooo much of a bad thing

Is a grammatically challenged, typo-filled article to be trusted? I have to wonder what facts the writer for Yahoo! News also mangled when I read stuff like this:

and this:

I’m guessing which should be while. I’m also guessing that one word here and a solitary parenthesis are unnecessary:

Maybe the Space bar jammed temporarily:

There’s just too much in Toobin’s name:

and a little unbalance in the correlative conjunction either…or:

Not much to be said about this, except that it does not reflect well on Yahoo! as an original news source.

Either neither is wrong or or is wrong

Neither the writer nor the editor recognized this error on Yahoo! Shine:

After you appraise it, apprise the writer

One verb, two goofs. How is that possible? To start with, the verb in this excerpt from Yahoo! Shine should be singular:

When the subject of the verb is joined by the correlative conjunction neither…nor, the verb must agree in number and person with the noun closer to it. The more glaring error is the use of appraised instead of apprised. They are really very different.

After you appraise this snippet, can you apprise the writer of your findings?

Show a little respect to Christie Brinkley

As a writer, you display respect for your readers by using the language correctly. You show respect for your subject by spelling her name correctly (sorry, Christie). The writer for Yahoo! Shine may have different ideas:

Maybe it’s OK in some worlds to ignore the missing half of the correlative conjunction not only…but also. But if you strive for grammatically correct writing, you’ll include not only not only but also but also.

Wanna hear a great tip I learned from Mom? When you’re referring to your mother, show her some respect with a capital M:

You should also show some respect to the subject you’re writing about. Start by getting the spelling straight. Sorry, but Prell was introduced by Procter and Gamble.

And get your pronouns right. Like, don’t use it’s (which means it is) when you should use its. It’s only right.

Dumbstruck by lightening

This ridiculous homophonic error on Yahoo! Shine hit me like a bolt of lightning:

Who the heck makes a mistake like that? The same writer who doesn’t know how to use either the correlative conjunction either…or or the hyphen:

Make over a headline

It’s time to make over this headline on Yahoo! Shine:

(If you mean the verb, you need two words.) Lest you think that makeover in that headline is a mere typo, here it is again in the actual article:

There’s a missing word here:

and another one gone missing here:

Our minds are crowded, but they can still identify the wrong word here:

and the pile of words that looks like a complete clause, but lacks sense and the unnecessary why:

The correlative conjunction not only…but also is nearly complete:

(I think I’m running out of red ink.) If you follow Associated Press style, you’d capitalize Internet. If you follow any style whatsoever, you’d get rid of the misspelled deadline:

I think if I had to read more of this, I’d doze off and later wake up in a nasty funk:

You either win or lose

The writer of Yahoo! TV‘s “Daytime in No Time” is either a bit confused about correlative conjunctions or unconcerned about sounding a bit illiterate:

Either way it’s like that old coin flip: Heads I win, tails you lose.

Monstrous missteps

In a photo gallery about the men behind the monsters and masks, Yahoo! Movies makes a few horrifying mistakes in the captions, like this scary mess:

That’s one sentence I can’t correct since I have no idea what the writer intended to say. On the other hand, the writer’s meaning is clear here, even though the word movies is missing:

Also missing? The word his in the first sentence:

In the same caption, the space between get and up is wrong (as a noun, getup is one word) and the the in front of effort has gone missing.

What to make of this? Is this clunker a result of a misplaced correlative conjunction (both….and) or some other misstep?

 That’s just one in a string of errors, including the missing word and incorrect wield here:

That’s a pretty scary photo gallery, but scariest of all? That an Internet giant like Yahoo! lets this stuff get published.