Hi, Friday Follies fans! The Grammar Cop has drummed up a few true-blue bloopers (say that 10 times fast!) for you this week.

1. ABC.NET.AU: (caption under a photo) “Leading sports doctor Dr. Peter Brukner explains what the drug meldonium is and the affect it can have on the body.”
2. THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM (blaring headline and first paragraph of story) “Quick, intense exercise may put the breaks on aging, research shows”
3. STRANGECOSMOS.COM: (from their weekly email digest) “Because of a number of requests, we are becoming more active of both Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.”

The corrections:

1. The word should be effect, not “affect.” Effect is almost always a noun, which is what is needed here. “Affect” is almost always a verb. The Grammar Cop has written about this before; for example, please see here.
2. Of course the word should be brakes, not “breaks.” The Grammar Cop would have let it off with a warning, if she’d thought it was a typo. But we know it wasn’t a typo, since it was in there twice. You know what’s funny? Some sharp-eyed person (whether someone on the website or newspaper staff, or a reader) must have reported this mistake, because this morning it was corrected! A good ad for the necessity of proofreaders!
3. The “of” in “more active of…” is rather ugly. Let’s change it to on. Next: did that “both” catch your eye? It should have, because “both” refers to two items. But here, there are three. It should just be deleted. So now the sentence reads, Because of a number of requests, we are becoming more active on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook.

See you next week, when you’ve had both rest, relaxation and recreation. [Insert eye roll emoji] 😉