Ability to count optional

You don’t need to be able to count to write for Yahoo Finance:

This writer can’t count and can’t get the name of the retirement account right: It’s 401(k). So, why would anyone trust the advice from this site?

Did the editor roll over?

Was there some disagreement at Yahoo Finance about the name of a popular retirement plan? Did the writer insist it’s a 401k, but the editor claim it’s 401(k)? Did the editor roll over and write this:

Well, a finance writer and editor who don’t know that the plan is a 401(k) probably don’t know that rollover isn’t a verb. The verb phrase is two words: roll over. (And the illustrator has a different idea about the plan’s name.)

But wait! There’s more! The headline for the article also claims rollover can be a verb. (What would its past tense be? rollovered?)

And there’s yet another (and wrong) name for the plan, this time with a capital K. (I’m going to overlook the missing hyphen in what normally would be two-minute.  It’s Yahoo’s feature and the company can call it anything it wants, even if it’s slightly illiterate.)

And then I stopped reading

I admit it. I really wasn’t interested in this article from Yahoo! Style, but I thought I could force myself to read it. And then I read it. Actually, I only read the first paragraph and couldn’t bring myself to read any further:

You may think you know Yahoo! writers, what with their use of incorrect words, but you don’t know half of it. My comments are based on the evidence (not based off of it). This paragraph is the latest brainchild of a Yahoo! writer (of “I don’t know where to put the parenthesis fame”).

You think you know grammar?

It’s Grammer time! Greer Grammer, that is. The writer for Yahoo! Style isn’t too good with English grammar, and is just as bad with Kelsey Grammer’s daughter, Greer:

When the writer isn’t misspelling her name, she’s omitting key words (like dress). She also demonstrates what can happen if you put a space after a left parenthesis. Not good.

That would be the definition of remains

I don’t know why I bother to read an article when the headline contains an error. Not surprisingly, the offending header is on Yahoo! News:

The U.S. retirement plan is a 401(k) — the parentheses are part of its name, which is taken from subsection 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code. The writer is so sure that the plan requires no parentheses, he omits them again:

What would be the living remains of a cat? I was just wondering since the writer tells us about the deceased remains of a cat:

Do you think that word missing in “started move on” is the last error. Calm down on that optimism. There’s just one more bit of nonsense:

I’m stumped. How do you calm down on optimism? How do you write stuff like that and still have a job?

It’s not a typo. I meant to misspell her name

How many times did the Yahoo! Shine writer misspell Cara Delevingne’s name? Every time! It starts in the headline of the article (just so you’ll notice) and continues throughout the article, in every photo caption.

But that’s not all! The writer displays a wobbly grasp of punctuation: There shouldn’t be a hyphen in “barely there” and the period belongs after the closing parenthesis:

Unless Miranda Kerr has two or more grandmothers who collectively own a farm, this apostrophe is wrong, and there should be a comma to separate the misspelled Ms. Delevingne from her age, which should be in bold:

As if to prove she didn’t make a typo, the writer continues with the abuse of Ms. Delevingne’s name in every caption:

Hey, I’ve always said, “If you can’t be right, at least be consistent.”

A new retirement plan?

Is there a new retirement plan that I’m unaware of? According to the Yahoo! front page, there just may be!

Or maybe it’s a mistake. The U.S. retirement plan is a 401(k) — the parentheses are part of its name, which is taken from subsection 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The U.S. state is Louisiana — the two I’s are part of its name, which is taken from France’s King Louis XIV.

The mistakes are Yahoo!’s — the company that doesn’t have editors, proofreaders, or even spell-checkers.

Thank you, Captain Obvious

Who woulda thunk it!? There it is, right on Yahoo! Shine: Anything that is negotiable is — wait for it — negotiable! Yes, everything negotiable is negotiable, except for school administrators:

It’s fairly obvious that the writer doesn’t know the difference between a principle (which is a basic truth, law, or assumption) and a principal (which is someone or something with the highest rank, like a school administrator).  You know what else is obvious? That the writer didn’t do a spell check, because even the crappiest spell checker would find this repeated word:

(Some writers don’t know that if the words within parentheses are a complete sentence, then the ending punctuation belongs inside the parentheses, too.) Oops, here’s a misplaced period:

And here’s another homophonic horror: The possessive pronoun its instead of the contraction it’s:

It’s getting more obvious that the writer doesn’t know when to use an apostrophe, because she missed one here, too:

Pronouns are pesky little things, aren’t they? They generally have to refer to a noun, and when they don’t, they just don’t make a lot of sense:

Is it asking asking too much that a professional writer proofread her work or at least use a spell checker?

A lesson on punctuation

Here’s a lesson on punctuation (for when you’ve had enough parentheses):

This example of what not to do is brought to you by Yahoo! Shine.

Twisting your ventricles

Some people just shouldn’t try to be clever when they’re writing. You don’t need to read beyond the first paragraph of this article from Yahoo! Shine to see that the writer is one of those people. It will twist your ventricles into a vice:

I’m going to attempt a simultaneous translation of that little expression: By “ventricles” the writer means “heart.” By “vice” the writer means “smoking, gambling, or other unsavory activity.” So, the dude in question will twist your heart until you start smoking or playing the ponies. Makes sense. (The misspelling in what should be “50 Shades of Grey” is hardly worth mentioning after that.)

Those of you still reading, undeterred by that gem, will uncover a missing word here:

and (surprise!) a missing word there:

If you’re foolish enough to continue reading, you may want to chew on this for a while:

Trudging on, you’ll find a missing comma, another missing word, a missing space, and one too many periods. (Only the one before the closing parenthesis is correct):

Finally, if you’re dotty enough to read the photo caption, you’ll see that the writer can’t tell a plural from a singular noun:

I think I’ll go take an aspirin after that. My ventricles feel like they’ve been clamped in a vise and I feel a little cardiac event coming on.