A full-blown editing crisis

At a legitimate publication, this would spawn a full-blown editing crisis. At Yahoo! Style, it’s just another misused word:

Apparently the editor didn’t know that crises isn’t singular; it’s the plural of crisis.

Barron Trump to attend exceptional school

Barron Trump, the youngest son of the current occupant of the Oval Office, is 11 years old. Next fall he’ll be attending a school for students aged up to 12, according to Yahoo! Style:

You might think it odd that he’ll be attending a school for just one year. But, it’s an exceptional school, for students in grades 9 to 12, also according to Yahoo!:

So, it looks like students complete grades up to 12, graduating from high school at the age of 12. Now, that’s an exceptional school. Unless… the writer got it wrong. The school serves students from age 2 to grade 12. Oops. That’s a  little different.

White House ain’t moving

The White House isn’t going anywhere, according to Yahoo! Style:

Is the White House stationary? Yes, but it’s not a source of handwritten letters. That would be White House stationery. If you have trouble remembering the difference between stationary and stationery, just remember both letter and stationery include the letters ER.

Alternative facts from Yahoo

For 80 years, Inauguration Day has been January 20. Apparently the Yahoo! Style writer is living in an alternative universe or engages in alternative facts:

Where did you spend the last 100 days?

I don’t know where this Yahoo! Style writer has been for the last 100 days, but it must have been a remote location, without access to the Internet or any type of news media:

To those of us not living in a cave, Malia Obama is not the daughter of the president. She is the daughter of a former president.

A mistake that will live in infamy

When Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” he wasn’t saying it would be famous. He was telling the world that it was a day that would be remembered for an evil act. When the Yahoo! Style used the word infamy to describe the effect of the Duchess of Cambridge on designers, she was saying she has no idea what infamy means:

Infamy is not a synonym for fame, just as infamous is not a synonym for famous. Infamy and infamous imply notoriety for evil, disgraceful, or criminal actions.

Gender identify confusion

It seems that the Yahoo! Parenting writer has a little confusion about the gender of a woman’s betrothed:

A fiancée (with two E’s) is a female. This stay-at-home mother is engaged to a man; he is her fiancé.

Going through a phase

Is the writer for Yahoo! Parenting going through a phase? She doesn’t seem fazed by this homophonic horror:

It’s the principle of the thing

If you read something on a site about a subject as important as health, you’d expect it to be accurate. But would you trust the credibility of a site like Yahoo! Health, if the writer made a mistake like this?

The writer, of course, meant principles (the basic elements, rules, or standards) of meditation. I wonder how many other homophonic errors this writer has made. Can we except that Yahoo! Health will feature an article on staff infections or the heartbreak of AIDES?

Whom just seems wrong

If you’re a conscientious writer who strives to be grammatically correct 100 percent of the time, but you still struggle with choosing between who and whom, take my advice: Choose who. If you’re wrong, 90 percent of your readers won’t know it and the rest won’t care. If you choose whom, you might be correct, but your writing will sound pretentious and stilted. And if you’re wrong, you might be mistaken for a writer for Yahoo! Shine:

Could that sound any uglier? The correct word happens to be who, because the pronoun is the subject of the verb had. The pronoun who is the subjective case (and hence, the subject of verbs); whom is the objective case (and the object of verbs or prepositions).