Placement!

Back in August 2021, more than two years ago, we devoted an entire segment to the misuse of “only.” We noted that a national insurance company has made a grammatically incorrect phrase its punch line. And now, a major phone company has started a campaign that makes the same mistake! We suspect many an English teacher has reminded these guys that this sentence suggests you don’t eat, breathe or sleep; all you do is pay for what you need. Correct: “Pay for only what you need.” Clearly the firms can’t say they didn’t know. We suspect they don’t care. If only…

Same rule. “…members get paid only if debt limit solved.”

“Only” strikes again! Everyone knows the restaurant doesn’t really mean what it wrote, which would be that no humans, cats or robots are allowed; just service dogs. But the place on the right figured it out. (We could have done without the extraneous comma and excess capitalization.)

He’s not the former disgraced president. He is, depending on your point of view, the disgraced former president. (PS: “Smith’s office announced it expects…")

It’s not Gaetz’s role that ousted McCarthy. Say, “Gaetz’s role in question after McCarthy ousted.”

Remember: The verb goes next to the phrase it is “verbing.” (Not a word.) In this case, the county “soon could require school uniforms.”

Same problem. Shark attacks “still are rare.” And scientists argue very few shark encounters are “attacks” and use of the term is inflammatory and dangerous.

We’ve covered this before. You don’t allow a map to be redrawn. You can’t allow it to do anything. You can’t direct it to do anything. You can’t order it to do anything. It’s an inanimate object. You allow people to redraw it.

Nope. Sadly, something definitely was recovered. How about: “The Coast Guard said last week that likely human remains have been recovered…”

And we go to the video archives for Segment 58: Hundred-dollar words and ten-dollar words. https://youtu.be/OIbEVkRo0qQ

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!