I can’t for the life of me figure out what goes through the mind of the editor for Yahoo! Shine. What made her think that presidential required a capital letter?
It’s not enough the mistake appears on Shine’s home page, it appears on another page, too:
The word presidential is not a proper noun, unless it’s someone’s name or the name of a cigar company.
Has Yahoo! jumped on the outsourcing bandwagon? That’s one possible explanation for the number of daily gaffes on the Yahoo! front page: The company is outsourcing the writing on yahoo.com to Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan, a non-English-speaking country.
It’s a country unfamiliar with American pop culture. A country where they put single quotation marks around Duggar because they think it’s the name of a TV show. It isn’t; it isn’t even part of the name of a TV show.
Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stanians must think that seasons are proper nouns. They aren’t in the U.S. Even though the writers will try to convince you otherwise, but don’t fall for it:
They obviously don’t know how to pronounce English words, because they don’t know which indefinite article to use:
Maybe Yahoo! could do a little soul-searching and reconsider its decision:
That way, when its front page goes on display, it’ll include the correct words in common English idioms:
and titles (like president) won’t have a capital letter:
and regions of the United States (like South and Southern states) will:
I’m not implying that the folks in Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan aren’t good writers and editors. They’re just not good writers and editors in English.
There’s inexplicable confusion about titles on the Yahoo! front page. I just don’t understand why professional writers and editors can’t figure out when to capitalize a title and when not to. Example: the Duchess of Cambridge. She gets a capital D when you refer to her full title; but when it’s just duchess? Not so much:
But the good folks over at the Internet giant are even more confused when it comes to referring to the president, President Obama:
As for Whitney’s Houston’s, I think that has something to do with the late pop singer and a city in Texas.
What’s wrong on the home page of Yahoo! News today? Just a few things (so far), like this incorrect capitalization of president:
That word gets a capital letter only when it precedes the name of the president; otherwise, it’s just a common noun. Someone mislead the editor.
The editor was also misled about the past tense of mislead:
Maybe the person who wrote that thought that mislead is like read: The past tense of read is read, so the past tense of mislead must be mislead. Wrong.
This isn’t quite the same wreck as that, but it isn’t shipwreck, but should be:
The word president has been promoted to a proper noun on the Yahoo! front page:
If this were President Obama, that capital P would be correct:
The mistake the editor for the Yahoo! front page made was assuming that the title needs a capital letter. It does — but only when it precedes the name of the officeholder.
In a recap of an interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann, the writer for Yahoo! Finance‘s “Tech Ticker” makes the Minnesota Republican look brilliant — by comparison.
The writer has a lot of trouble matching a verb to its subject and seems to love to capitalize words willy-nilly:
The overcapitalization continues throughout the piece. And the goofy use of a hyphen proves that it’s no substitute for an dash:
Calling the health care bill waiver a “shame” is a little weird, even for Rep. Bachmann:
What she actually called it is a “sham.” How do I know? I listened to the interview. (Oh, the sacrifices I make for Terribly Write’s readers!)
There’s a missing word here. And unless only one state has the right to opt out, the apostrophe is misplaced:
Again with the capitalization of president! A hyphen goes missing from the compound modifier government-run and part of a verb has disappeared:
I’ve thought for a long time that Rep. Bachmann was a little goofy. Apparently writing about her makes one a little goofy, too.
If you’re like most people, simple typos and other errors have a negative effect on your trust in a Web site. So, how many gaffes and goofs does it take before you totally dismiss an article?
Let’s look at one post from Yahoo! Finance‘s “Tech Ticker,” and you tell me if you find it credible. First, the writer capitalizes president (which isn’t a proper noun unless it immediately precedes the president’s name) and hyphenated bipartisan:
This takes on a whole new meaning because the writer omitted the word tax:
A missing hyphen isn’t so bad:
But one more missing word? I’m beginning to wonder what else the writer left out:
Another dropped word! I’m not liking this or the writer’s inability to use a hyphen consistently:
What do you think? Would you trust the information in the article now?
At what age did you find yourself thrust into adulthood? Were you old enough to know that foisted isn’t the correct word here?
The writer of this article for Yahoo! Shine claims to be an adult, even though her writing can be a bit juvenile. Or perhaps its the rebellious spirit of a teen that compels her to ignore the niceties of spelling and grammar and other language-related stuff.
She loves her some capital letters, but unless she means some guy named Mac and his dog Cheese, these capital letters are wrong:
She’s fearless in her use of homophones, even if they’re wrong. And she’s a bit lazy when it comes to using a dictionary to figure out if Peter Pan should be capitalized:
Sometimes she throws out a collection of words that make sense only in her own mind:
More with capping. That word isn’t a proper noun and apostrophes aren’t quotation marks:
Nice try, but wrong. The abbreviation “STDs” is singular; the verb should be stands:
Again with the arbitrary capital letter. She loves to make Everything So Damned Important by capitalizing it. I can’t hardly wait until she learns how to look up movie titles online:
An expiration date doesn’t have a length; it’s a point in time. Maybe you meant: “before its expiration date.” And what the heck did she think “gets the Led out” means? It makes no sense, right? My advice to her: Get the lead out and head to a dictionary.
More typos and homophonic hilarity, too. And of course she just had to capitalize president, even though it doesn’t precede the man’s name.
This young whippersnapper should just get the lead out and head for a dictionary. And maybe a class in writing.
It’s tempting for writers to capitalize titles, even when they don’t precede a name. That’s the trap that the writer for Yahoo! omg! fell into.
In what seems to be a trend away from punctuation, the writer omitted the hyphen that should join ex to co-host. To avoid the double-hyphenated ex-co-host, the writer could have pecked out former co-host.
Terribly Write 