Grammdæmonium: stuff we woulda caught

Showing posts with label stuff we woulda caught. Show all posts

Either/Or

What's Wrong with It
This one isn't too hard to spot, but if you don't want to waste the time, I'll just go ahead and tell you: "Either" means "one or the other of two," so if you're using it to mean "one of three," you go to hell.

How to Fix It
Just replace "either" with "any." There are some other terms you could substitute for "any," but "any" is nice and short and conveys the sense of urgency the ad's going for.

Other Thoughts
You could take issue with using the number "3" instead of spelling it out (numbers one through nine are generally spelled out), but exceptions are typically made for headlines, ads, and some other instances for purposes of immediacy. The idea is to summarize the message in not only as few words as necessary but also in as few characters (likewise this is why you don't usually see compound adjectives, and thus hyphens, in headlines). But that's a topic for another day.

11 best photos from of spelling mistakes

The whole thing is here HT to 11 Points.

Right now the Speedway by my apartment has pumps reading "premuim." Hilarious. I'll try to get a picture.

100-square-mile vs. 100-miles square; alliteration vs assonance vs consonance

John August ponders a misprint in the Los Angeles Times:

Solar power: A Friday editorial said that according to the U.S. Energy Department, enough sunlight hits a “100-square-mile” portion of the Nevada desert to power the entire country. It should have said “100-miles-square.”

I maybe would have caught the 100-square-mile, but I wouldn't have known "100-miles-square" without looking it up.

But I'm more interested in the claim, because it's pretty vague. If I were proofing this, I'd ask whether "country" refers to the contiguous United States, excluding Alaska, Hawaii, and all our territories and embassies and everything else, or if it includes those, too. And for how long? A day? A year? Indefinitely?

And even still, suppose someone built that 100-miles-square solar panel and the cost of energy plummeted: Then people would consume a lot more energy. I can't say how much more, but likely more than the 100-miles-square panel would provide.

"Elite Eight" is cacophonous to Don Boudreaux's ears:

So unlike many Americans at this time of year, I remain sane throughout this period of "March Madness." But all the alliteration is inescapable -- "March Madness"; "Sweet Sixteen"; "Final Four"; "Elite Eight."

Wait! "Elite Eight"? What a terrible term for the eight college basketball teams remaining in the annual NCAA tournament. It's not alliterative at all.

Now you're probably thinking, Wait! "Elite Eight" wouldn't be alliteration; it'd be assonance! (and if you're wondering what the difference is, "alliteration" is the repetition of a consonant sound; "assonance" is the repetition of a vowel sound [and if you want to get really technical, alliteration is a repeated consonant sound at the beginning of the words; whereas "consonance" is a repeated consonant sound anywhere in the words]).

But it's usually okay for alliteration to mean all those--repeated consonant and vowels sounds occurring anywhere in the word.