My friend Brenda sent me an email with an attachment and a cryptic message. The email said simply: “I believe a better word choice here may be hosting an event.” Confused, I opened the attachment to find a flyer for a resort with a huge headline that asked: Are You Having an Affair? I laughed out loud. After all, there’s a huge difference between hosting an event and having an affair. Below the headline, the flyer went on to promote the resort for romantic getaways, family gatherings, bachelorette parties, and so on. So yes, to...
Here’s this week’s mistake, although it is admittedly subjective: What’s right: The writer used the written out version of 34 to start the sentence, and that’s correct. We don’t start sentences with numbers. Writing “34 percent of…” is wrong. Writing “Thirty-four percent of…” is right. What’s wrong: The other number should be a number, not a word, meaning it should say 18, not eighteen. Why? For two reasons: The number is not at the beginning of a sentence as 34...
Sadly, I saw this in an ad, an actual ad, that was paid for and probably a designer was paid and a copywriter too, yet no one took a minute to actually proofread the darn thing. Do you see the mistake? In the heart of a young woman, lies a secret that divides a nation. Here’s the answer: The comma doesn’t belong because the two parts of that sentence can’t stand alone. How do I know? Because neither makes sense on its own. Here’s proof: In the heart of a young woman. Lies a secret that divides a nation. Do either of those...
This Monday’s Mistake has an obvious punctuation error. Do you see it? More importantly, it is wrong overall in a much bigger way. Do you see why? First, the punctuation error: the comma before please. Verizon values your feedback and please take this 15-minute survey about your overall experience are two independent clauses. Neither needs the other. Therefore, we can’t use a comma. It should be a period and look like this: Verizon values your feedback. Please take this 15-minute survey about your overall experience. But the bigger...
This week’s Monday’s Mistake deals with a common error because we don’t seem to know how to properly capitalize the words in a title. As a result, I often see the word “is” lowercase when it should be capitalized because it’s verb…as just one example. Do you see the error in this title? “The” should not be capitalized. If the writer had capitalized “to” as well, it would be okay because we’d have consistency with every word capitalized. Then it would look like:...
Here’s yet another mistake from real life. Do you see the error? “It is true that if you are farming on the moon or in the desert, then hydroponics might make sense (If you have to grow in such a parched landscape.)” It’s a common punctuation error. And it’s about the period inside the parentheses. When you use parentheses, the period goes either inside or outside. How do you know which? If the words inside the parentheses are not a complete sentence, then don’t treat it as such and the period goes outside. If the words inside the...
