"Heedline"

While I'm a born and raised NYer, I'm rooting for the Bears this Super Bowl... mostly because their fans are wonderful. Oh and I'm going to be in "Chicaco" next week. I am also thinking about stopping in at the Green Bay Press-Gazette and suggest they hire me (freelance, of course) after this goof up.

While it's not nearly as big of an error as the "Dewey defeats Truman" headline...this is A1! The only thing the publisher could have done was issue an "Oops, this is embarrassing" correction...and so they did:

What really gets me, though... is that the Super Bowl is being held at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium--in Arlington. Fact checking error or another really bad spelling mistake? You decide.

CMS 13 Secrets

A fellow copy editor asked to borrow my Chicago Manual of Style (13th Ed.) book the other day to do a little research and when he returned it to me, made a remark at how I tabbed some sections that he thought were "silly." Three-year-old silly pink Post-its and silly sections include reminders on:

perform v. preform

"Perform" suggests completing an action. "Preform" means "to do beforehand."

gray v. grey 

"Gray" refers to the American English spelling of the English word "grey". They mean exactly the same thing.

blond v. blonde

"Blond" refers to color, whether it is of hair, wood, or whatever. "Blonde," refers only to a woman or a girl with blond hair. A man with blond hair is a blond (without the "e").

e.g. v. i.e.

Roughly translated, "e.g." means "for example" and "i.e." means "in other words."

I'll never mess those up. More to come!

The "homo"s

No, not the homosexuals. The homonyms, -phones, and -graphs. Also shout out to the ever-confusing heteronym.... I love these words, but even I do occasionally trip up, and while it's been a slow week for grammatical peeves, there's something cringe-worthy in this list for everyone!

HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings. 

Homophones are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings. (All homophones are homonyms!)

HOMOGRAPHS are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Heteronyms are a type of homograph that are also spelled the same and have different meanings, but sound different.

Here are some classics and my absolute favorites:

Homonyms, -phones

see, sea

their, there, they're

its, it's

Homographs

bough  (tree limb)

bow  (front of a boat)
bow  (at the waist)

bow  (tied with ribbon)
bow  (shoots arrows)

Heteronyms

wound (injury)

wound (to tie up)

produce (fruit, vegetables)

produce (to make)tear (to rip)

tear (to cry)

bass (fish)

bass (instrument)

52 Grammar Gaffes

Happy New Year! I like to start out every year with a fresh set of goals. In 2010 I saw the success of my freelance work, solved a Rubik's Cube in under two minutes and I networked like crazy and met some smart and kind people.

I'm not sure what 2011 holds, but I'd like to gear at least one of my resolutions towards a hands-on thing. So, each week I'll post something grammar-related that I find many people (adults, too!) overlook. Here's hoping that I refresh your elementary school language arts memories with crash course in commonly misused terms and phrases. This week: Less v. Fewer.

Disclaimer: While you can't take the grammar rules out of the girl, I'm not the kind to interrupt people mid-sentence and fix their syntax. I may, however, on occasion, comment on word choice or pronunciation, but I like to leave my ranting in print here at godawfulgrammar.

Less v. Fewer

While "less" and "fewer" have the same meaning, they have very different uses in context.

The rules are: 

Use less with qualities or quantities that cannot be individually counted.

Use fewer with objects that can be counted one-by-one. 


Some examples:

Express Lane: 20 items or fewer. (you can count items!)

A tweet must be fewer than 141 characters. (you can count characters)

If you put less water in the tub, it won’t overflow. (you can’t count water individually—and it doesn’t have a plural)

The rosebush has fewer buds this year than last. (you can count rosebuds)

As he got older, he listened to less music. (you can’t count music individually—and it doesn’t have a plural)