From the Grammar Police

The Shazam Awards!

1940s comics character Shazam was an acronym for the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. A lot of power in one name! In his honor, we inaugurate our salute to people who managed to commit several writing mistakes at one shot.

Another failure of foreign spellings. It’s ceviche. And steak tartare. No hyphen after fish. (And, as we’ve asked in other examples, what fish? Obviously not wahoo.) Plus, these would be today’s specials (plural). (NOTE: Eliot frequents this restaurant. The “today’s special” sign hasn’t changed in several years.)

Any merchant in the world can find someone nearby — or on the internet, for goodness’ sake — who speaks competent English and can take 10 minutes to clean up messes such as this. In fairness, for the cheap price paid for this product, we shouldn’t expect good grammar.

This suggests a body was found in the ocean, and then someone else died. Easy fix: “Man dies after he is found floating…” We also surmise that, sadly, despite efforts by people who found him, this poor man already had been dead for a while.

This was at a major institution in Miami. Yeah, the people who wrote this sign likely spoke Spanish as their primary language. But, well, a lot of people in Miami, and in that particular building, speak English first. Fix this! (PS: This would be a croquette. Croquet is a lawn game.)

There’s spell check. And then there’s autocorrect. Remember The Exorcist? It wasn’t the Exercist. You could exercise demons in a gym. Get them in shape. But this guy exorcised demons.
But wait! There’s more! The writer also violated the maligned comma rule. Fix: “…Darnold beat the Rams to exorcise some demons and can conquer the ghosts he saw against the Patriots. And he can do it in San Francisco…”

Shazam! Our usual practice of circling mistakes in red would have left this mess looking like a case of ringworm. (And this was in a high-end Manhattan hotel restaurant!) Members of the Horribly Wrong team actually had to ask the waitress to decipher. It’s amazing what proper punctuation will do. Let’s try:
“BREAKFAST: Choice of pancakes, eggs any style, or smoked salmon on a bagel. Sausage or bacon. A breakfast pastry. Coffee or tea. Juice.”
“CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST: Coffee or tea. Juice. Choice of parfait, fruit or cereal. Choice of two breads or pastries.”
Let us know if you originally had construed something different in each description. We did.

This poor person wasn’t a former cheerleader when she was dropped. Just say cheerleader. But that’s not all. This headline touched our hearts when it invoked the brutal cliché that inspired the name of our blog!

And we go to the video archives! Click for Segment 100: Orange Socks

Readers: "Something Went Horribly Wrong" features samples of bad writing we see nearly every day. You can participate! Be our duly deputized “grammar police.” Your motto: “To protect and correct.” Send in your photos of store signs, street signs, menus, TV news graphics, newspaper headlines, tweets, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a grammatical error. It can be just what we call “cowardly writing.” Include your name and home town so we can credit you properly. You're free to add a comment, although we reserve the right to edit or omit. Now get out there! Send to Eliot@eliotkleinberg.com

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NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!