OK, so I lied. There is no single punctuation character that is publicly misused. Every punctuation character is misused in public, especially on Yahoo!. This time the punctuation is a hyphen and the site is Yahoo! Finance:
The rule: Don’t put a hyphen between an adverb ending in -LY and the word it modifies.
The editors at the Yahoo! front page seem uniquely unqualified to perform their jobs. They just can’t remember that there’s no hyphen between an adverb ending in -LY (like, oh, say, maybe uniquely) and the word that follows it:
Here’s what the folks at Yahoo! Style could use: Some carefully planned editing. Or at least careful proofreading so that an adjective, and not an adverb, is used to modify a noun:
If this were written by a third-grader, the mistakes might be understandable. But coming from a professional writer for Yahoo! Style, they’re downright disgraceful:
Someone writing about fashion should know that paillettes needs two L’s; they are a type of sequin. And when the plural word is the subject of the sentence, it requires a plural subject. And Lord help her (because no one at Yahoo! will), the writer actually thinks that graceful is a suitable modifier for the verb floats. It is not; the adverb gracefully is.
Even if the writer for Yahoo! Makers managed to spell Smoky Mountain correctly, this brief excerpt would be problematic:
Why did she use the adverb cheaply? It apparently modifies available, but have you ever heard of anything that was “cheaply available,” and not merely cheap?
But the worst mistake is the terminology she used to describe this DIY project. She calls the objects “candlestick holders,” but candlesticks are candle holders. So, you’d be making holders for candle holders. She’s obviously confused a candle with a candlestick.
I have a question for the writer for Yahoo! Celebrity: What does a scantily clad outfit wear?
And I have another question: Why is there a hyphen between the adverb scantily and the word it modifies (clad)? And one more question: Was Ms. Jenner scantily clad or were her outfits?
Did your inner Grammar Cop immediately kick in when you read this from the Yahoo! front page?
If I made as many mistakes in my job as this writer for Yahoo! Style, I’d be afraid my job would be on the chopping block:
At least I know the difference between a chopping block and an auction block, which is what she meant, but didn’t write. I also know not to put a hyphen between an adverb ending in -LY and the word following it.
What was the Yahoo! Style writer drinking when she wrote this? A bevvy? (That’s a drink. An alcoholic one.)
There’s practically a bevy of minor mistakes there. Nothing serious, but enough to detract from the writing. Besides the misspelling, there’s the incorrect hyphen after an adverb ending in -LY and the use of a instead of an.
This hyphen from Yahoo! Style is not discreetly placed; it’s as clear as day:
If you care about writing that is scrupulously correct, you wouldn’t put a hyphen between an adverb ending in -LY and the word that follows it. If you care about being understood and not looking like an undereducated dilettante, you’d use discreet when you’re referring to something that was designed to attract little attention.
Terribly Write 