Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Error prone

Yesterday's challenge:

"The search that lead the state's Council on Postsecondary Education to hire interim President Brad Cowgill for the full time post was not proper, Conway said as part of a nonbinding legl opinion released Thursday."

Kelly spotted the misspelling that appeared in the story (lead for led) as well as the one I inadvertently added (legl). Oops. (he-he-he)
Using lead for led is a common error because the soft-metal "lead" is a homonym for "led" and perhaps because both the present tense and past tense of "read" are spelled the same. "Read me a story." "I already read you a story." "Lead me home." "I already led you home."
Kelly also spotted the style error, the missing hyphen in the two-word adjective "full-time." Two-word adjectives preceding a noun should be hyphenated (exception: if the first word is "very" or ends in "ly").

E rewrote the sentence, correcting the style error and eliminating the misspelling.

The wrong word choice is debatable. Rather than use "said" in reference to a written opinion or press release, the word "wrote" is more precise and less likely to confuse the reader. "... Conway wrote in a nonbinding legal opinion ..."

Today's challenge (six errors — maybe more if my typing hasn't improved since yesterday):
Although this deal is just between he and I, I'll discuss it with whomever is higher than he to see what they think before preceding.

Cliche corner:
"Let's think outside the box and create a new paradigm by reinventing ourselves. Or would such cutting edge thinking provoke a firestorm of criticism?"
Have you heard any of these in your workplace? What other cliches annoy you?

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