Sunday, September 16, 2012

Look whose functionally illiterate




Enter the editor-in-chief of Bluff magazine (pictured above) into the Slow Learners' Olympics. I see a gold medal in his future.

The August issue is the third one in nine months that contains headlines with rudimentary errors of English--the kind that should have been shaken out of your system before high school graduation. (See here for the others.)

Guys, bookmark this great web site: Common Errors in English Usage. It might save you from further embarrassing blunders like this one. For the record, here is the entry on the who's/whose distinction:
This is one of those cases where it is important to remember that possessive pronouns never take apostrophes, even though possessive nouns do (see it’s/its). “Who’s” always and forever means only “who is,” as in “Who’s that guy with the droopy mustache?” or “who has,” as in “Who’s been eating my porridge?” “Whose” is the possessive form of “who” and is used as follows: “Whose dirty socks are these on the breakfast table?”
Please make a note of it.

2 comments:

darrelplant said...

Have you caught a look at the official WSOP-C blog yet?

http://blog.wsop.com/2012/09/events-4-and-5-cards-in-the-air/

Sunday’s in the fall typically begin with the question — “Are you ready for some football?”

Then again, it's not in print. In a huge, bold-type headline.

-k said...

I have this defect, too. Literally, I saw that headline and dropped the magazine like it was hot infected with stupid. I mean, REALLY? Right on the masthead page? Some copyeditor needs to be publicly flogged, and the editor should DEFINITELY be fired....