Going rouge

Is my face red! That’s what I’d say if I were the editor for yahoo.com:

This is a rogue monster wave:

This is a rouge monster wave:

Readers vow to stand up to errors

In other news, according to Yahoo News, European leaders vow to “stand-up” to Trump:

With a hyphen, stand-up is a variant of standup, which is an adjective (he’s a standup guy) or noun (he’s a comedian who only does standup). As a verb, it’s stand up, without a hyphen and the idiom that means “to confront” is stand up to, also without a hyphen.

New York AG proponent of sexual misconduct?

I’m scratching myself and wiping the dandruff off my keyboard over this teaser on Yahoo News:

I know what an opponent of sexual misconduct is. But what is an opponent against sexual misconduct? I think it means the attorney general of New York is a proponent of the shady activity. He’s also accused of non-consenual behavior, which is another head-scratcher. Maybe if Yahoo’s editors used a spell-checker they would tell us that it’s consensual behavior.

Being to feel

I’m beginning to feel that the folks at Yahoo News don’t believe in proofreading:

Are your policies benefiting readers?

Are Yahoo News’ policies benefiting its readers? I don’t know what the company’s policies are, but I know what they should adopt: Requiring that headlines be proofread by an actual human being before they’re published. In that way, the Internet giant might avoid embarrassments like this:

A spell-checker won’t have caught that typo. Nor would it have flagged this as a spelling mistake:

I’m not going to say that the Yahoo editors are pulling a total con job on readers. This is just one more reminder that you can’t rely on a spell-checker. But there’s one benefit — at least for me. I learned that puling is a real word; it means whimpering or whining.

 

If only there were a way…

If only there were a way to check the spelling of app names. Like, if the folks at Yahoo News had a picture of the app Grindr so that they could see how it’s spelled. Wouldn’t that be great!?

To to funny

If it’s really cold where you live, the weather might be called wintry. Except on yahoo.com, where it’s wintery:

In the U.S., the preferred pronunciation is with two syllables and the preferred spelling is wintry. Choosing an uncommon spelling of a word is not as bad as two to‘s, which I find too, too funny.

Apostrophe-impaired?

Is there a shortage of apostrophes at Yahoo Lifestyle? Or is it just a shortage of editors who know how to use them? Here’s a headline and teaser that has me questioning if Yahoo hires only apostrophe- and spelling-impaired editors:

OK. So that was just a careless mistake (or two or three). The actual article must be better, right? Wrong. Those folks at Yahoo are still apostrophe-impaired, unable to put them in two places in one sentence:

Let’s take the charitable view that this is just a typo and not the result of a writer’s unfamiliarity with a common expression like “fill it up”:

I’d overlook this mistake (just like the writer overlooked the word to before walk), if it were the only goof, but alas, it’s not:

Another apostrophe goes missing here, but maybe it’s just the result of a malfunctioning keyboard:

But, wait! There’s more! After I wrote this post, the headline and teaser were corrected. Somewhat:

It looks like the editors noticed the missing apostrophe and the typo. Good job! Maybe next time they’ll learn to use a spell-checker and proofread before publishing. If not, I may just harass them some more.

This speaks volumes

This headline on Yahoo Sports speaks volumes about the proofreading skills of its editors:

To paraphrase the occupant of the Oval Office, they consult themselves because they have “a very good brain.” Except it should be Brian.

Break up that breakup

Did the editors at Yahoo Lifestyle break up with their dictionary? Is that why they used the noun breakup instead of the phrasal verb break up?

Think about it: If breakup were a verb, what would its past tense be? Breakupped?