Welcome back, Friday Follies followers! (Say that 10 times fast! 😁) Ready for another batch of lame-brained grammar goofs, cited by the Grammar Cop? Dig in!

1. “At a certain point, the STM has to reign in its employees and ensure they are doing the job they are supposed to be doing…”
2. “…the mayor had the audacity to send letters to all the borough mayors with a not so subtle tone of reprimand worthy of a grade school teacher and…”
3. “…with constant punishments for even the slightest infractions – food that hardly meets any type of health standards, refusal of sending inmates with health problems to a hospital because…”

The corrections:

1.  Here is an error we’ve seen repeatedly, just about everywhere! The only time “reign in” is a correct phrase is in the context of royalty, such as: William the Conqueror reigned in the 11th century. To reign means to rule over a country as a ruler, with the trappings of royalty, as a king, queen, or emperor. But when the phrase “to reign in” is used as in the infraction above, it is wrong. The correct word is rein. To rein in, as one would rein in a horse – pull on the reins so as to slow it down and narrow its lead – would read in the sentence above: …has to rein in its employees and ensure they are doing the job they are supposed to be doing – i.e., to narrow their purview, their area of activity. (Note that reign can also be a noun, e.g.: Her reign over England was fair and benevolent.)
2. Hyphen-o-phobia has reigned here! It has struck not once but twice! This sentence fragment should read: …the mayor had the audacity to send letters to all the borough mayors with a not-so-subtle tone of reprimand worthy of a grade-school teacher and… New readers who haven’t had the privilege of  seeing the Grammar Cop’s previous citations in this regard must learn the reason for the need of hyphens. When you have a phrase such as a not-so-subtle tone or grade-school teacher, the phrases right in front of the nouns tone and teacher act as compound adjectives – they function together as an adjective, modifying the noun. Clear as mud? You’ll get it! 😬😁
3. In this list of punishments at a prison, there’s a severe grammar glitch that needs to be amended. “Refusal of sending inmates”? What the heck is that? Atrocious grammar, I’m afraid. One does not “refuse of sending.” One refuses to send. So the fix here is: …food that hardly meets any type of health standards, refusal to send inmates with health problems to a hospital because…

The Grammar Cop refuses to read any more weekly rags newspapers that harbour such abominable mistakes… well, at least until the next time she needs more fodder for Friday Follies (say that 10 times fast)!