Friday Follies #188 – Making Grammar Great Again, One Hyphen at a Time

~ Ellie

Welcome back FF friends, and a friendly hello to all you newcomers! The Grammar Cop has a special rant – I mean treat – for you today! 😬😉

In this week’s editorial of the local weekly rag newspaper, we see the following:

  • 2 punctuation errors
  • 1 spelling mistake
  • 1 grammar boo-boo
  • 5 typos

We’re talking a piece of about 900 words written by the editor in chief, no less. Let’s take a look.

  1. “…demonization of all non- Francophones.”
  2. “Social peace is not a legitimate goal if it is the sole aim of a society. Social justice is however.”
  3. “What are we aiming for? The statiscally unatainable one hundred per cent?”
  4. “…society’s utter failure to get basic things right, that it’s governments – of whatever party – resort to exploiting division and discord…”
  5. Never mind the 5 typos! They’re too disheartening!

 

The corrections:

  1. Notice the space between “non-” and “Francophones”? It shouldn’t be there! It should say non-Francophones.
  2. There should be a comma after “is,” before “however.” Read the first sentence again, now followed by Social justice is, however. That’s much better. He’s saying that social peace isn’t the main goal; rather, social justice is. (Without the comma it reads as if social peace = however, which is nonsense.)
  3. “Statiscally unatainable” – good grief! What a glorious example of bad writing! Of course it should say statistically unattainable. A typo snug up against a misspelling: it’s not too often you’ll see that written by an editor. In fact, you’d never see that anywhere else. Because most newspapers have proofreaders! Grrr. Don’t get me started! (By the way, Americans, in case you’re wondering, “per cent” is acceptable in Britain and Canada. “Percent” as one word is more common in the U.S. Both are correct.)
  4. Here we have the dreaded it’s/its mistake! “It’s governments” should be its governments.

Arrgh! The Grammar Cop is going to relax now and read a newspaper – preferably one that has a proofreader on staff!

 

14 thoughts on “Friday Follies #188 – Making Grammar Great Again, One Hyphen at a Time”

    1. Oh thanks, Ron. Good catch from my son in the comments, here under the handle, “tripill”! I had forgotten to add the #4 corrected “it’s” bit! See, I guess we ALL need a proofreader!!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. I”m going to show my ignorance. What is the different between a typo and a misspelling? I’m guessing one is a mistake of the fingers, and the other is a mistake of the brain. I’d rather have my fingers be blamed than my mind.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. A typo is just a ‘misstep’ – like your typing “different” up there when you meant “difference”! It’s not because you didn’t know how to spell “difference.” But a true misspelling is more obvious – as when I often see, on social media, “effect” when it should be “affect” or “advise” when it should be “advice.” Almost all of those are NOT typos. Typos are just little accidents; we all make them at times.

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  4. 1-Henri takes offense at anyone demonizing French telephones. 😉
    2-Social justice is however what??
    3-It appears proper grammar and spelling are statistically unattainable.
    4-The apostrophe catastrophe strikes again! No trophies for the writer!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. 😂😂😂 You’re hilarious! Listen, it’s a good thing most grammar out there is statistically imperfect, otherwise the Grammar Cop would be out of a ‘job’! And you, Ms. Deputy G. C. , would be jobless too! 😜

      Liked by 1 person

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