Antidote for Errors

Corrections:
1. He joined the Marine Corp because he wanted to ensure he would see action.
The correct spelling is Marine Corps. I am amazed at how often we see Marine Corp — the abbreviation of corporation without the period. Even former Marines, when submitting letters or news copy, often spell it Corp.

2. The cheesecake was fantastic, but she preferred the barbecued mutton.
Fantastic comes from the same root as fantasy. It means fanciful, bizarre or unreal. Using it to mean wonderful or terrific became a fad in the 1970s, and it still lingers. It used to annoy my mother when the singer Roy Clark misused the term.

3. Officers called off the search, believing the suspect had fled the state.
The officers thought, not believed, the suspect had fled the state. Belief has to do with faith or truth or opinions. "I believe what you said." "I believe in God." Using believe as a synonym for think is imprecise and can confuse the reader.

4. He was confident he could hurl the football further than anyone on the team.
Farther. Further means to a greater degree. Farther means a longer distance.

Any of you error spotters who happened to see the editorial page Sunday no doubt caught a whopper — right in a headline.
I had "Obama offers right anecdote for nation's ills." Of course, I meant "antidote."

I was obviously asleep at the wheel. How embarrassing. But it did remind me of the joke about the guy who said his friend's death taught him the importance of a good vocabulary. When his buddy fell sick, the guy tried to cure him by telling him amusing little stories.