Hi, folks! Today’s belated blog post is brought to you by the letter ‘S’ – as in Sorry!

This hasn’t happened since who knows when! My explanation is contained in this Facebook post I rushed into print last night at 11:37 p.m., when I suddenly realized: – Friday Follies?!! Gasp!  I wrote:
“Eeeek! I just realized I FORGOT to write my weekly Friday Follies blog post!!

I am ashamed. I can only put it down to extreme distraction (but in a good way!) due to a big change in my living situation… I now have the great good fortune of a having an ‘in-house’ boyfriend – as opposed to one who lives 700 km away! More to come on this, but I’m too tired now.

All right. Enough of this little peek into the Grammar Cop’s private life. Let us get on with this week’s ungainly gaffes!

1. “This newspaper has, and will continue to, stand staunchly behind this endeavour.”
2. “Amber Rose Back Peddles After Comedian Jess Hilarious and Others Slam Her for Wishing Death on Bill Cosby.”
3. “Yale Law School choses sides in the Kavanaugh confirmation saga in surprise move.”

And the corrections:

1. This is what happens when you try to get fancy in your writing. See the problem? The tenses are muddled. Here are the corrected verb forms:
   This newspaper has stood staunchly behind…
   This newspaper will continue to stand staunchly behind…
   But in attempting to combine the two, the writer ended up with a mixed-up mess. The problem is that one tense requires stood while the other needs stand. There is really no way to glom them together in one sentence that isn’t awkward.
2. Did you do a double-take when you read this headline, as I did? “Back Peddles”? Really? This should say backpedals. When you “peddle” something, you are selling it. You need pedal here, as in riding a bike. When backpedaling you’re moving backwards.
3. Uh-oh. Time for Friday Follies to address this yet again. The present tense is spelled choose. The past tense is chose. This sentence was meant to be in the present tense, as is evident by the “s” on the end of the verb. It should say chooses here. (So often, the word choose is confused with the verb, lose – a completely different word, etymologically speaking. With lose, the present tense has only one o. The past tense is lost. As I’ve said before, a great mnemonic device is: lose has lost an o. Confused? You’ll get over it. 😁)

The Grammar Cop is pleased to have been of service. No sakrifise is too grate in the kwest for the propper use of the Henglish langwaje.