Greetings, Friday Follies Fanciers! The Grammar Cop brings you her last set of three ugly infractions before her holiday break.

1. “Looking for bilingual salesperson to cover Montreal & surrounding area’s with fantastic promotion campaign for both our papers.”
2. “Even in the cosy toytown idyll of The Village, a subterranean army of faceless minions monitor our every move…”
3. “With Christmas just over a month away, and the holiday shopping frenzy now under way, one gift giving suggestion that you can…”

The corrections:

1. Okay, this one should scream out at you. If you don’t see it, let me ask you this: Why would “area” take an apostrophe-s here? Does the “area” possess something? No. What is intended is areas – the plural of area. In case you’re still stuck, try reading the sentence again, this time with areas. It should make sense.
2. A too-quick perusal of this, and you might miss it. The word “monitor” should be monitors. As a verb, it must agree with the subject of the sentence which is singular: “army.” (No, the subject is not “minions.” And no, “cosy” isn’t wrongly spelled; it’s an acceptable variant of cozy.)
3. The last one really bugs me. It should say one gift-giving suggestion. You need the hyphen in that compound adjective describing the noun, “suggestion.”  (Extra note: I also hate the repetition of the word or sound, “way.” It says “away, and then a few words later it says “under way.” There are oodles of other ways to say these. 😉 )

Call me picky. But you’d better do it fast, because Friday Follies is taking off for a couple of weeks. We’ll be back with more lousy lapses in grammar, spelling etc. Meanwhile, the Grammar Cop wishes you a wonderful, fun and peaceful holiday! See you January 5, 2018!