Friday Follies #43 – 4 mistakes that make me go “Arghhh”!

Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Follies. The Grammar Cop is pleased – no, make that not pleased – to present this little collection of gaffes.

  1. DAILYMAIL.CO.UK: “Rachel (…) discovered that her partner had been using online dating sights in order to chat…” Somehow I don’t think her partner was sightseeing. Well, I suppose he was, in a way, but the proper word here should be sites… as in web sites.
  2. CNN.COM: “But in a three hour spell of seamless coordination between President Barack Obama and Clinton’s campaign…” There’s that hyphen-o-phobia rearing its head again. That should be three-hour spell.
  3. CNN.COM: “Following Obama’s endorsement, the real estate mogul tweeted…” More of the same phobia here! It should be real-estate mogul.
  4. THE SUBURBAN: “We are the highest taxed jurisdiction in the industrialized west…” Do you notice it on your own now? Or shall I nudge you in the direction of highest-taxed jurisdiction?

This hyphen-o-phobia must be stamped out… preferably by the time our kids are high-school students. They must learn that such oft-repeated mistakes will not be tolerated, especially in graduate- or post-graduate courses. A couple of good online explanations regarding the uses of the hyphen with compound adjectives may be found here and here. Thanks for visiting Friday Follies, and see you next week!

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