From the Grammar Police

Thanksgiving food disasters

The custard dessert is crème brûlée.

Once again: Prix fixe is French for “set price.” “Pre-fix” sounds like prep work for sterilizing a pet. We’re not going there.

Premises is plural. So: “These premises are inspected…”

Eliot recently visited Europe and found that lazy misspellings are an international plague.

This is a noble sentiment. But we argue it’s a brutal cliché. Readers?

This didn’t explode during a test flight. It exploded on the ground. In fact, this wasn’t a test flight. It was a launch pad test firing of engines. It gets better. We’ve gone after SpaceX before for its shameless and unintentionally hilarious use of euphemisms. It described this massive explosion as a “major anomaly.” Sure was.

The Horribly Wrong team is hesitant to point out grammar mistakes — in this case, a redundancy — when a tragedy is involved. But really? Giving birth to a newborn?

And we go to the video archives for Segment 95: Even more hiding in plain sight.

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!