Ha-haaa! This week the Grammar Cop is finally on time, all the better to make you weep over a new haul of horrific grammar glitches!

1. “Even 40 Westt owners **** and **** took a peak inside their private blue room to see the action taking place.” (Note: 40 Westt is the name of a steak house here in Montreal. Apparently they just want to get your attention… and succeeded.)
2. “Despite having performed to sold out crowds across a variety of venues, including the Just For Laughs festival, which he…”
3. “It defies logic … that in the same year the provincial government devolved more powers to Montreal and recognized it officially as Quebec’s ‘Metropolis.’ It would curb its voice in the National Assembly.”

The corrections:

1. If the owners took a “peak” in their blue room (personally I prefer mint green), did they have Mount Everest in there? Or perhaps the smaller Mount McKinley? I doubt it. Perhaps they took a peek, i.e. took a look. Yeah, I think so.
2. Hyphen-o-phobia strikes again! The phrase “sold out” crowds should be sold-out crowds. We need that hyphen because sold-out is a compound adjective modifying the noun, crowds.
3. I don’t know about you, but to me these two sentences written separately as above make no sense. The period after “Metropolis” needs to be replaced by a comma, so we now have: It defies logic … that in the same year the provincial government devolved more powers to Montreal and recognized it officially as Quebec’s ‘Metropolis,’ it would curb its voice in the National Assembly. Notice we also change the “I” in “It would curb” to a lower-case i. (Note: I don’t see why “Metropolis” needs to be capitalized here, but, well, what do you think? Yes/no?)

The Grammar Cop has done her duty for the week. All will be bliss until next week when – rest assured, Friday Follyites – more putrid prose will have reared its ugly head – if it has one.