Hi again, FFers! Time for another round of abominable apparitions from the Grammar Cop. She never sleeps, folks!

1. “…when he and fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein collaborated together to break the Watergate Scandal that…”
2. “Beloved actor and comedian Bill Cosby’s fall from grace lead to heated debate among his fan base, and his most passionate adherents still refuse to…”
3. “She had free reign to use the most atrocious grammar possible.”

And the corrections:

1. Here’s a three-in-one, people. There are three boo-boos in this one sentence fragment. Number one, “collaborated together” is redundant. If you “collaborate” with someone you are automatically doing something “together” with that person. So pick one or the other – either you collaborate with someone on a job, or you work together with someone on a job. Number two, a reporter doesn’t “break” a scandal. She/he can break the story of a scandal, however. Number three, “Scandal” should not be capitalized. It should say Watergate scandal. 
2. Once again, the Grammar Cop must insist that the past tense of lead is spelled L-E-D, led. It’s far from the first time that this mistake rears its ugly head, and it won’t be the last, I’m afraid. Sigh. One more thing. “Adherents”? You can have adherents to a religion, a cult, a cause, a group, but not to a person. You can substitute admirers for adherents here – although how this man can still have any, is beyond me…
3. Again, for the umpty-eleventh time, “free reign” is incorrect! Sooo many people get this wrong. The expression is free rein. Think of riding a horse but holding the reins loosely, so it can go where it wants at its own pace. By the way, the Grammar Cop admits she made up the last sentence. Didn’t “atrocious grammar” give it away? 😁

Well, FF aficionados, time for a little R & R. The Grammar Cop will be taking two weeks off, so there will be no FF posts on December 21st or 28th. We wish you peace, love, happiness and good grammar for the holidays!