The man of whom we speak

There’s at least one person who writes for a living, but has only a tenuous grasp of English grammar. Of course, the man of whom we speak is the Yahoo! Sports writer responsible for this:

Between you and me, this sucks

Just between you and me, when I read something like this I have to wonder if English is the writer’s first language:

And then I wonder what the heck the editor was doing before this was published on Yahoo! Sports. And then I wonder if Yahoo! even has editors. And then I wonder why I’m surprised by grammatical mistakes on Yahoo!.

For those of you who don’t mind my getting a little grammar-nerdy, here’s the issue: The writer chose the wrong pronoun. The pronoun is the object of the preposition between and therefore should be in the objective case. (Get it? Object of preposition; objective case.) The objective cases are me, you, him, her, it, us, them (plus whom and whomever).

Of all the grammar mistakes made by Yahoo! writers and editors, this is probably one of the worst because it’s in the first word of the first sentence of the first paragraph. And it’s soooo obviously wrong:

I don’t know anyone, much less a professional writer, who would say that, much less write that. The Yahoo! Parenting writer needs to go back to second grade or start hanging out with people who speak correct English.

You, me, and the rest of the English-speaking world know that the correct pronoun is I, not me. And if it sounds awkward as the first word that’s because it shouldn’t be the first word. The pronoun I should come second in the compound subject: My 7-year-old son Jack and I.

A Hall of Fame error

Do the Dallas Cowboys have a plan for Randy Gregory? Or does the team have plans? You just can’t tell because of this mismatch of subject and verb on Yahoo! Sports:

That’s not exactly an error for the Hall of Fame of Grammar Goofs, but hyphenating Hall of Fame is.

More games amount to more than one

Was the writer for the Yahoo! front page unable to figure out that games is plural? More grammar errors and having to face disgruntled readers amount to one amateurish webpage requiring a little editorial support:

Writers who forget grammar

What do you think of writers who forget grammar and can’t match a verb to its subject? I’m thinkin’ of the person behind this grammatical goof on yahoo.com:

Is that just a careless typo, a slip of a digit? Or is that an indication of a deeper, more serious attention deficit disorder when it comes to grammar?

Someone may have stolen your grammar book

Poor guy! The writer for Yahoo! Style most have had his grammar books and dictionary stolen. And with his writing skills, that’s a real tragedy:

Kim Kardashian and she snapshots

What is with the writers at Yahoo!? How could the Yahoo! Style writer make a boneheaded grammatical mistake like this:

I mean, really, doesn’t it just sound wrong when you read that? You don’t need a degree in English to know that it’s really, really wrong to say “she and her husband’s snapshots.” You just need an ear for English.

Can readers make writers smarter?

What does it take to improve the grammar of the professional writers and editors responsible for yahoo.com? Pointing out their errors, jeering, and suggesting corrections impact their writing. Sometimes.

How to sink your career

Your career as a writer for the Yahoo! front page may have just sunk with this grammatical gaffe:

A sunken career can be as hard to raise as a sunken ferry, especially if your downfall is the result of an ability to distinguish between an adjective (like, oh, say, maybe sunken) and a verb (sunk).