Welcome back, FF pals! Today, the Grammar Cop’s bunch o’ bloopers is derived from the same weekly-newspaper editorial. Boo hiss! 😃

1. “As civil rights attorney Julius Grey has warned so often, “we may not yet be a police state but we are an inspector state.”
2. “It is precisely this society’s utter failure to get basic things right, that it’s governments … resort to exploiting division and discord…”
3. “The statiscally unatainable one hundred per cent?”

The corrections:

1. Here’s another case of hyphen-o-phobia. It should be civil-rights attorney. The reason for the hyphen? The words “civil rights” act as a compound adjective describing “attorney.” Therefore they must be joined by a hyphen.
2. Did you spot the despicable disgrace? That egregious error? The – well all right, it’s the “it’s”! Er… the its shouldn’t have an apostrophe in it, because it is meant to be possessive. The sentence should read, …that its governments resort to exploiting division… (By the way, the its refers back to “society’s.” If we re-read the sentence with this in mind, it makes sense.) Just remember this:
   ITS = POSSESSIVE (no apostrophe)
   IT’S = CONTRACTION FOR IT IS (apostrophe needed)
3. Two! Two! Two flubs in one! The first is probably just a typo – statistically. The second, however, looks like a spelling mistake: unattainable. The Grammar Cop also isn’t too happy about “per cent” with the space in it, but that’s a stylistic choice. Both per cent and percent are acceptable. But don’t you think 100% would be best? What do you say? This is a poll!

Today’s boo-boos come to you courtesy of a certain newspaper editor-in-chief who still eschews the use of a proofreader. Too bad for him. Great for Friday Follies, though! 😄