Welcome. Now go away

The front page of a website is like a welcome mat. But what if that mat read “Welkome”? Would you still enter the site?

Would you click on this headline on Yahoo! Style, knowing that the designer’s name is Julien Macdonald (without a capital D)?

Do you find the breakup of a word on the same page a turnoff?

If I were the editor, I would have corrected this incorrect verb, but as a reader, I’d pass:

How many errors on a home page does it take before you  realize that maybe you’re really not welcome?

A couple errors

It’s not a couple of errors on the Yahoo! front page; it’s one error and it involves a missing word:

As the American Heritage Dictionary notes:

The of in the phrase a couple of is often dropped in speech, but this omission is usually considered a mistake. In 2013, 80 percent of the Usage Panel found the sentence A couple friends came over to watch the game to be unacceptable.

How many is a number?

The number of errors on yahoo.com reaches a level that hasn’t been seen since yesterday at noon. Here’s one more:

A number of these errors are avoidable by simply employing an editor with a thorough understanding of grammar.

The American Heritage Dictionary describes how to choose the correct verb to use with the noun number:

As a collective noun number may take either a singular or a plural verb. It takes a singular verb when it is preceded by the definite article the: The number of skilled workers is increasing. It takes a plural verb when preceded by the indefinite article a: A number of the workers have learned new skills.

Dumbest Statement of the Day

If you read this on the Yahoo! front page, you might be wondering how Blake Lively could wear 256 outfits in one week:

That would require a lot of changes of clothes; in fact, she’d have to average 36 outfits a day. She’d have to change outfits not just between engagements, but during engagements and in the limo driving to  engagements.

So, why did the writer publish such a dumb statement? Because Ms. Lively asked designers for 256 outfits prior to her press tour. During the weeklong tour, she wore a total of 18 outfits. That’s just a tad different from what you read here.

Oh, and the use of was? If making grammatical errors were a sport, this writer would be considered an Olympian. A statement contrary to fact requires a verb in the subjunctive mood; in this case that’s were, not was.

I’d prefer a photo of him

When did schools stop teaching grammar? It must have been before this writer for Yahoo! Celebrity attended first grade:

Why would anyone with a high school education think that the object of the preposition of could possibly be he, and not him?

Ancient artifacts date all the way back to today

I’m appalled. It apparently took an entire team of  “Yahoo Style Editors” to come up with one of the most ridiculously ignorant statements I’ve read this week. Let’s skip over the arbitrary and totally incorrect comma, the mismatch of a subject and verb (which should be ranges), and focus on the B.C/A.D times:

It took the entire brain trust of editors to declare that ancient artifacts date back to “B.C/A.D times.” WTF? Are they really that ignorant? Do they not know that AD means all the time from the birth of Christ to the present day and beyond? (It seems like overkill to mention that they think that one period is enough for an abbreviation of two words.)

After that disaster, I suggest readers imagine a website with educated adults at the keyboards. And that ain’t Yahoo! Style.

One of a growing number of writers who have erred

This writer for Yahoo! Style is just one of a growing number of Yahoo! scribes who have made grammatical mistakes:

This blogger and the world are following…

Ouch! This is almost painful to read on the Yahoo! Answers blog:

How the heck did a grammatical error like that happen?!

What every man can incorporate into his writing

You know what would be great? If all writers at Yahoo! Style used correct grammar in their writing. Like, if this writer used the correct pronoun in his article:

I suppose it was going to happen eventually: When it became acceptable to use they, them, and their to refer a single person of unknown gender, those pronouns would be used even when the gender of the antecedent is apparent. But it’s wrong here: The antecedent is man; it’s singular and the pronoun should be, too.

Where else can you read something like this?

If Yahoo! Style ever hired real editors or writers familiar with basic English grammar, I’d have nothing to write about. Not really. There’s still lots of instructive errors popping up every day on Yahoo!. But the mistakes on Yahoo! Style are the best. Where else could you find this grammatical goof, made by a so-called professional writer?