An Oldie but Goodie from The Christian Science Monitor

Picture us, if you will, standing in front of The Christian Science Monitor, arms akimbo, one hip popped, and a horrified look on our face. If we were inclined to such phrases, the words that would fall from our disbelieving lips might sound something like, "Oh. No. You. Didn't." If we weren't so stunned, paralyzed even, we would be perilously close to tears.

What, you ask, could inspire such a reaction? The following sentence, which appeared in the Monitor's article, "Obama and Lee Myung-bak both condemn North Korea":

And then, 28 minutes after their appearance began, the two president's walked out of the Rose Garden and down the colonnade to the residence for lunch, followed by a long line of male aides in dark blue suits and a lonely female aide in a summery white outfit.

While we recognize that this line appeared in the Vote Blog, which some might consider to be a less grammatically and punctuationally demanding medium than, say, a more traditional news article, we do not believe that blog authors for "award-winning international news organizations" can be excused for not knowing that under no circumstances whatsoever should an apostrophe be used to denote a plural noun. In fact, to put a very fine point on it, we do not believe that any writer in the English language who has completed a secondary education can be excused for violating such a simple and essential principle of punctuation. Perhaps you think we are too hard, too dictatorial, too merciless. Perhaps we do not care.

For this egregious violation, we hereby award The Christian Science Monitor a We Are (Almost) Speechless, an Oops, Is my Lazy Showing?, and the following Drunken Proofreading rating:

***** (five stars) - Whaaahhaa? Whodrankshaaallllthershcotch?

Our inbox is overflowing today!

This next item was submitted by Tynitra W, who found this Oldie But Goodie in an AP article titled, "Obama: Dems Lack Votes for Timetable":

"Bush has said he's basing his plan on the advise of the nation's military leaders." (emphasis ours)

Advise, the verb, is not technically a homograph for advice, the noun, but it looks like one, and failure to detect the difference can be the source of much confusion.

This Golden Oldie earns the following Drunken Proofreading rating:
*** (three stars) - I needed a shot just to look myself in the mirror this morning.

We are also pleased to announce that we have inspired our very first piece of ad hominem criticism from a total stranger who somehow found us online. We have been accused of pedantry, which we dispute only in the sense that part of a pedant's offensiveness has to do with a seeming lack of self-awareness. We, on the other hand, are aware of our tendency to hairsplit, and believe it to be part of our charm.

Oldies But Goodies on MSNBC.com

We came across this spectacular grammar gaffe in a Netiquette article on MSNBC.com titled, "OMG! YR still on MySpace? Loser!" (We can barely bring ourselves to type that title):

"It’s not they’re fault. They’re at work, where they’re supposed to be working, not surfing the Web." (emphasis ours)

This falls under the category of Oldies But Goodies. If you undo the contraction, it reads, "It's not they are fault," which makes no sense. The proper usage would be the word that reflects possession, their. An understandable mistake for someone who is entering junior high this week; it is not so understandable a mistake for a professional writer.

Drunken Proofreading rating:
***** (five stars) - Whaaahhaa? Whodrankshaaallllthershcotch?

Introducing: Oldies But Goodies

Oldies But Goodies are defined as the sort of proverbial grammar mistakes involving homonyms, homophones, and homographs*: than vs. then, affect vs. effect, they're/their/there, you're/your, two/too/to, etc. The abundance of word wonkiness is just one of the quirks that makes the English language so darn magical. These classics will never go out of style; they are the golden oldies on The Grammar Wall of Shame's playlist.

It should be noted that these violations merit a much higher punishment because they involve absolute fundamentals; anyone calling herself a professional writer/editor should have these rules long since memorized.

*For a good explanation of the difference between homonyms, homophones, and homographs, click here.

Note - this post has been corrected. The Oldies But Goodies were originally grouped together as homonyms, the generally accepted categorization for these types of words; however, in the interest of precision, we have included the more specific categorizations, homophone and homograph.