Let\u2019s begin this installment of \u201cMedia Watch\u201d with a headline we could do without:<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cManning and Co. bring in \u2019da noise\u201d<\/p>\n
Did you catch it? Why the apostrophe? It should not be there unless one or more letters are omitted from the front of da<\/em> (like the missing be<\/em> in \u2019cause<\/em>). That\u2019s not the case; da <\/em>is a condescending spelling of the<\/em>, as uttered by a rowdy football fan. It appears that the headline writer added the apostrophe as a wink to the reader, a way of saying, \u201cOf course, I<\/em> don\u2019t talk like these hooligans.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cThis ugly episode must be overcome in favor of defeating ours\u2019 and Russia\u2019s mutual enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n Another diseased apostrophe. The possessive pronoun\u00a0ours<\/em> never takes an apostrophe, any more than yours<\/em>,\u00a0hers<\/em>, or theirs<\/em> does. But even if we remove it we are still left with the frightful ours mutual enemy<\/em>. The sentence calls for the possessive adjective our<\/em>. So make it either our and Russia\u2019s mutual enemy<\/em> or\u00a0Russia\u2019s and our mutual enemy<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cRMJ is an acronym for Recycle My Junk.\u201d<\/p>\n No, RMJ is an initialism<\/em>. There is a key difference between acronyms and initialisms. If you can say it as a word, as with NASA<\/em> or ROM<\/em>, it is an acronym. If you pronounce each letter, as with FBI <\/em>or RSVP<\/em>, it is an initialism.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cHis choice is Jackson, whom he said already knows the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Why is it that so many people seem to use whom<\/em> only where they shouldn\u2019t? Look what happens if we move\u00a0he said<\/em> to the back of the sentence: His choice is Jackson, whom already knows the job, he said<\/em>. Obviously, the right choice is who<\/em>, the subject of\u00a0knows<\/em>\u2014and emphatically not the direct object of said<\/em>. So make it His choice is Jackson, who he said already knows the job<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cIronically, Shakespeare\u2019s greatest literary contemporary died the same day he did.\u201d<\/p>\n The first word should be \u201cCoincidentally.\u201d When something is ironic, it has a grimly humorous or paradoxical twist, as if the universe were playing a wicked practical joke. Thus, it is ironic if a speeding car crashes into a \u201cdrive carefully\u201d sign. But where is the irony here? Do not use ironically<\/em> when referring to an odd or remarkable coincidence, such as two famous writers dying on the same day.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cBefore they fled, he and his mom had a going-away party.\u201d<\/p>\n The article was about a fugitive who had committed quadruple homicide. We understand that we\u2019re living in the Age of Informality, but there is something spectacularly inappropriate about calling a sociopath\u2019s enabler mother \u201chis mom.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pop Quiz<\/strong><\/p>\n The following are sentences recently heard over the airwaves. See if you can make them better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pop Quiz Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s begin this installment of \u201cMedia Watch\u201d with a headline we could do without: \u2022 \u201cManning and Co. bring in \u2019da noise\u201d Did you catch it? Why the apostrophe? It should not be there unless one or more letters are omitted from the front of da (like the missing be in \u2019cause). That\u2019s not the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10,12,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-definitions","category-effective-writing","category-pronouns"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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