You may have once partied too hard and had “tee many martoonis.” Now check out these items with too many words – often the wrong ones! 😬

1. Women who gave birth in hospitals were more than five times more likely to report mistreatment than those who gave birth at home.
2. Laura Palumbo … told the BBC that while the Weinstein trial was a “significant moment” nationally, that it was important to reflect that it did not reflect the reality of most rape cases in the US court system.
3. The first thing I think you have to recognize is that there are things that you change which effect other things. If you change the plot, then you change the pacing. If you change the characters, you change the plot. On the other hand, changing the order of a sentence does not effect much except how the reader experiences your world… You can fiddle with pacing without effecting character. You can correct for inner cohesion and extrapolate on your world building without having too much effect on everything else … but it’s generally true.

The corrections:

1. The writer figured that one “more” is good, so two “mores” would be even better. Trust me. They’re not. One of them has to go; let’s get rid of the second one, as it’s overkill. So now we have: Women who gave birth in hospitals were more than five times likely to report mistreatment than those who gave birth at home. Much better.
2. The Grammar Cop has two beefs with this sentence: First – “reflect” appears twice in a row. That’s what a thesaurus is for, folks. For example, we can change the first “reflect” to realize or change the second one to represent. It’s just awful to repeat a word when the thesaurus is so wonderful/necessary/lovely/fantastic/marvelous/fabulous. The second problem in the sentence is: “that” appears three times. At least once too often. A simple deletion can solve the problem: Laura Palumbo … told the BBC that while the Weinstein trial was a “significant moment” nationally, it was important to realize that it did not reflect the reality of most rape cases in the US court system. (To shorten the whole thing, the entire phrase “it was important to realize that” can be omitted. It’s unnecessary.)
3. OMG, as we say on social media! (Double-OMG when you know this monstrosity was written by someone supposedly giving writing advice!) This “writer” urgently needed to use a thesaurus. He or she should have looked up “effect,” “change,” and “thing,” at least. S/he also needs a lesson in word usage. The word “effect” is usually a noun, as in “Humidity has an effect on wood.” When you want to use it as a verb, it becomes “affect”: “Humidity affects wood.”
   Note: There are only two exceptions to this. “Effect” can be a verb, but only in a construction such as “to effect change” – to make change happen.  “Affect” with an A can be a noun, but only in the fields of psychology and psychiatry: “Her affect was flat” – she didn’t show emotion.)

Bonus: Major Typo Alert:  “Former Boca Raton mayor Susan Haynie is charged with charged with with official misconduct, perjury and other offenses.”
– caption in the Palm Beach Post! Booo! Hiss!

Attention Readers! The Grammar Cop invites you to submit any lulus you find in the comments section. The best ones will be featured in the next edition of Friday Follies, along with snarky comments from the G.C.!