Here is another set of recent flubs and fumbles from usually dependable journalists.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cYet my relationship with the game was simple and uncomplicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did this one get by the editors? One of those two adjectives has to go.<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cHe is accused of fleeing to London in March while owing more than $1 billion dollars to Indian banks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dollar sign means \u201cdollars,\u201d so \u201c$1 billion dollars\u201d is as redundant as \u201csimple and uncomplicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cThe vessels have the capacity to carry about 2\u00bd times the number of containers than held by ships now using the canal.<\/p>\n
Why would anyone put\u00a0than<\/em>\u00a0in that sentence?<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cThe outpouring of anger and concern show that California wants vital and vigilant coastal protections.\u201d<\/p>\n The subject is the singular noun \u201coutpouring,\u201d so the verb should be\u00a0shows<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cTo get in, I waded through a throng of protesters gathered around the entrance \u2026 A few protestors got close enough to snap pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n The Associated Press Stylebook\u00a0<\/em>and many dictionaries accept only\u00a0protester<\/em>. Other dictionaries list\u00a0protestor<\/em>\u00a0as an alternative spelling. But no authority alive recommends spelling the word both ways in the same paragraph.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cIt is an important fact ignored\u2014or maybe unknown\u2014to the candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n The writer wanted to say that the \u201cimportant fact\u201d was either ignored\u00a0by<\/em>\u00a0the candidate or unknown\u00a0to<\/em>\u00a0the candidate. Here\u2019s how to make it work with the dashes:\u00a0It is an important fact ignored by\u2014or maybe unknown to\u2014the candidate<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cThe outcome is a major win for public employee unions, who would be weakened if members didn\u2019t pay for representation.\u201d<\/p>\n The word after \u201cunions\u201d should be\u00a0which<\/em>, not\u00a0who<\/em>. Despite being made up of people, a union is a thing. Writers should limit their use of\u00a0who\u00a0<\/em>to humans.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cBorn in Brooklyn in 1922, stage fright steered Mr. Bauersfeld away from Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0dangler<\/strong>\u00a0is alive and thriving in the twenty-first century. Did you spot it? To sticklers and other careful readers, this sentence is sheer nonsense: it states with a straight face that stage fright was born in Brooklyn in 1922. We could write\u00a0\u00a0Stage fright steered Mr. Bauersfeld, who was born in Brooklyn in 1922, away from Hollywood<\/em>. But now the reader wonders what being born in Brooklyn in 1922 has to do with stage fright and avoiding Hollywood. Year and place of birth are irrelevant here. The writer was trying to cram too much into one sentence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here is another set of recent flubs and fumbles from usually dependable journalists. \u2022 \u201cYet my relationship with the game was simple and uncomplicated.\u201d How did this one get by the editors? One of those two adjectives has to go. \u2022 \u201cHe is accused of fleeing to London in March while owing more than $1 […]<\/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":[12,33,8,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-effective-writing","category-prepositions","category-pronouns","category-who-vs-which-vs-that"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193"}],"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=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}