For years, Readers Digest carried a feature called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pardon, Your Slip is Showing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d highlighting journalistic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slips\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that appeared in the American press.<\/p>\n
When Las Vegas attempted a commercial airline and offered rides to families at a penny a pound, there were quite a few takers. But as interest dropped off, apparently the airline sponsored a promotion, which provided breakfast before each flight.<\/p>\n
The Optic carried a small item on Page 1, announcing a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fly breakfast.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Some typographical gremlin must have clipped a few letters from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fly-Out Breakfast,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d leaving an unsanitary and unappetizing alternative. Readers Digest, however, gobbled it up.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d rather have chocolate-covered grasshoppers or ants for breakfast.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another, but let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s analyze it a bit first:<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re concerned about the condition of a Portales gentleman who apparently has survived being knocked over by a large truck.<\/p>\n
According to last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Albuquerque Journal, the victim, David Stone, was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153toppled by a wayward truck.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now stay with me:<\/p>\n
Sentence modifiers often cause confusion for writers and headaches for English teachers because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re weird birds (the modifiers, not the teachers). My guess, based on 45 years of chasing commas, is that most people who dangle or misplace their modifiers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even aware of the error because these modifiers are neither fragments, run-on sentences nor comma splices. But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s drop the English teacher lecture notes.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a misplaced modifier: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As an overpaid, privileged, indulged shoplifter, I think Lindsey Lohan should do some serious jail time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no fragment, comma splice nor run-on in that example, but there is a clause that precedes the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think\u00e2\u20ac\u009d part of the sentence. Too many people construct their sentences this way without realizing that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think\u00e2\u20ac\u009d refers back to the person being described. In reality, I am neither overpaid, privileged or indulgent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d nor a shoplifter, but the sentence implies I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m all those things.<\/p>\n
The description obviously refers to Lindsey Lohan, not to myself. It makes more sense to write, simply, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that as an overpaid, privileged, indulged shoplifter, Lindsey Lohan should do some serious jail time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That way, the descriptions refer to the failing movie star, not to me.<\/p>\n
The item in the Journal is about a 12-foot by 36-foot welcoming sign that reads, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Welcome to Portales, home of 12,000 friendly residents, and three or four old grouches.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d If only for its humor value, the sign was effective.<\/p>\n
It was effective until a truck driver ran his rig into the sign, knocking it over. The plans to re-erect the sign are under way, but the writer of the article that appeared first in the Portales News Tribune and got picked up by the Journal doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite say what was implied. Instead, the article indicates that the truck knocked over the owner of the sign.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what writer Alisa Boswell wrote:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Toppled by a wayward truck … the signs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 originator and Portales resident … David Stone said a new sign will once again be giving travelers on U.S. 70 a warm welcome.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So, at a cost of about $25,000, the sign is set to go back up, with the original message about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153three or four old grouches.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you be grouchy too if toppled by a wayward truck?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
The oft repeated refrain that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is the first time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard about it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d came back to haunt during this Thanksgiving season. To repeat: I often wonder whether certain terms simply are generated and used by, like, everybody, or whether I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d simply been oblivious to their existence.<\/p>\n
Last year in this space I commented on a friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s question about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Black Friday,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the day after Thanksgiving, for which \u00e2\u20ac\u0153black\u00e2\u20ac\u009d might have two meanings: black as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in the black,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in making a profit, and in the black, as in the auto exhaust made by thick traffic making its way to big box stores to claim their treasures.<\/p>\n
At the time, I swore I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Black Friday,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d although an Internet search revealed the term\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been around for decades.<\/p>\n
But now, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cyber Monday\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Is this yet another commercial movida to stretch the Christmas gift-buying season from December to December? This morning, I received 17 unsolicited e-mails on Cyber Monday, respectively, from Kodak Gallery, National Geographic, Barnes & Noble, The New Yorker Store, Amazon.com, MaxPerks, East Coast Photo and 10 others.<\/p>\n
Each e-mail promises a bundle of savings. I did a search of the term and came up with a neologism invented by Shop.org. as part of the U.S. trade association National Retail Federation. It goes all the way back to 2005, so I must have slept for about six years, the magic of Cyber Monday having slipped by.<\/p>\n
Imagine: Two researchers with Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, are credited with having developed the computer chip back in 1958.<\/p>\n
If it hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been for them, would we even have a Cyber Monday and this opportunity to purchase all these bargains?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For years, Readers Digest carried a feature called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Pardon, Your Slip is Showing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d highlighting journalistic \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slips\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that appeared in the American press. When Las Vegas attempted a commercial airline and offered rides to families at a penny a pound, there were quite a few takers. But as interest dropped off, apparently the airline sponsored a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}