How about a New Year’s resolution to shed those chronic goofs?!

This still is one of our favorites. You don’t say, “turkey bird.” Then why do you say, “tuna fish”?

It’s been a while since we had to remind you that IMPACT IS NOT A VERB!

Remove “in 10” and you see where you went wrong. It’s not 10 neighbors. It’s just one.
·      “One of your neighbors has to make…”
·      ”One in 10 of your neighbors has to make…”

A group was stopped. A vessel was intercepted. You knew that.

Whoever writes the slogans for this big law firm forgot the elementary “only” rule, which we find so infuriating we dedicated an entire segment to it in August 2021. What this ad is saying is that if the lawyers win, you won’t eat, stand or breathe. Just pay. Here’s the correct wording: “Pay only if we win.”

• We dedicated two segments to the assaults on the poor defenseless comma. Again: When you use a comma in a series of phrases, it’s a contraction of sorts. It saves words and makes for tight writing, which we love. But time and again we see people mess up as they did here. Here’s what this sentence literally says:
  Get help if you have rash (hives).
  Get help if you have trouble breathing.
  Get help if you have feel faint or dizzy.
  Get help if you have have swelling of your lips, tongue, or throat.

Of course, that’s not what these guys meant. Should be: “Get help if you have rash (hives) or trouble breathing, or feel faint or dizzy, or have swelling of your lips, tongue, or throat.”

We addressed this in our Feb. 28, 2021, segment on oxymorons.  Remember: An appointment is not the thing you are attending. It’s something you mark in your calendar. Substitute “reservation” for “appointment” and you see how it doesn’t work. So in this case, you are being asked to make a reservation for your reservation for your spot in the sale.

A loyal reader recently brought this 1998 film to our attention. The title is clever. But it’s wrong. “Hardly” means barely. So it should be “Can Hardly wait.” “Can’t Hardly Wait” suggests you wait all day. It’s in the category of the horrid “I could care less.”

We covered this in our Sept. 12, 2021, segment. It suggests no two hearing aids are alike. Obviously some are. Should be: “Not all hearing aids are created equal.”

Eliot recently visited his 90-year-old dad, whos himself a longtime editor. Pop, unsolicited, commented on this sign where he live’s. Its not hard to be correct on the day’s of the week.

“Doc: I’ve told you before about the comma splice in this sign you posted in sick bay. We learned this in the academy. This needs to be two sentences: ‘The room is cold. Please bring a jacket.’”
“Dang it, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a grammarian.”

And we go to the video archives for Segment 34: Fun, jollification and enjoyment with synonyms. https://youtu.be/8QDLqNscym8

Items before the Assizes:
Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! On the docket:
Loyal reader and frequent contributor Dr. Baruch Kahana submits “Military discounts for those that served” and suggests it’s redundant. The Horribly Wrong team notes that many others — police, EMTs, nurses — serve as well, so the team grudgingly will ALLOW it. But the good doctor also argues “who served” is better than “that served.” We’ve ruled on this before and of course CONCUR. Remember: “style” suggests that for objects, who for people.
Doctor Kahana also sent us an article about a New Year’s Day tragedy that said in part, “The Nissan lost control and collided into a Dodge Challenger.” He notes that the car did not lose control. The driver did. We CONCUR. Also, you don’t collide into something; you collide with it. The Rules Committee (Lou Ann) notes the Associated Press stylebook recently said it now was OK for something to “collide” with a fixed object: “The definition of ‘collide’ used to require that the colliding objects had to be in motion. No more, as a century of constant misuse has brought yet another inexplicable evolution of the language. I will forever disagree, but as hills worth dying on go, this is not one.”

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 properly can credit you. 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!