Something Went Horribly Wrong!
INTRODUCTION
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A new blog about bad writing, and how you can fix it.
BY ELIOT KLEINBERG
With Lou Ann Frala
Originally posted January 3, 2021
A king told his trusty squire: “Go down to the dungeon and kill James and Guinevere’s son. Get this right or you lose your head as well.”
How many people does the squire kill?
Are you sure?
Good writing is about clarity. Very few of you will write for a living. But all of you need to know how to write. You don’t necessarily have to be a great writer. But you really should be a correct writer.
And so we introduce “Something Went Horribly Wrong.”
In case you didn’t figure it out, the phrase is a cliché. One that’s been so overused it’s become farce.
In this feature, we will show you more clichés, plus grammatical errors, redundancies, oxymorons, and goofs of history and geography. We suspect you will groan when you recognize mistakes you’ve made.
The explosion of social media, emails, and texting should have made everyone, through practice, better writers. Instead, people invited shortcuts and celebrated bad writing. The result is the dumbing down we see today.
Perhaps you can get away with it on Facebook. But a company memo that goes on too long and is unintelligible, or is filled with inappropriate language that gets you in trouble with the boss, is doing your career no favors. And an ad that has a grammatical mistake a third-grader wouldn’t make isn’t good for business. It just might turn off customers.
And don’t even start with the comma that cost an airplane maker $70 million! (That’s for a future segment.)
“But wait!” you will say. “Who are you to tell me I have to get it right? There’s no grammar police, fining me for getting something wrong.”
You’re correct. But, we would proffer this: Every day you make decisions that affect how people judge you.
Imagine attending a black-tie affair in a tuxedo, but with orange socks. Or coming to work in shorts.
“Well!” you say. “I’d never do that in a million years.” We say, “Why not? There’s no fashion police.” You say, “It would make me look stupid.”
Aha!
So, you won’t wear orange socks with a tux or come to work in shorts. But you do write, “Lay down by the television.” Or you order up a doormat that reads, “The Wilson’s.” Or you invite us over this weekend to meet Jim and Nancy’s son and leave us scratching our heads as to whether we’ll be meeting one person or two.
“Horribly Wrong” is the work of two recent retirees of the Palm Beach Post newspaper.
The writer is Eliot Kleinberg, a veteran of more than four decades as a newspaper and broadcast reporter, most of it in South Florida. His Florida history column runs in two dozen newspapers. He also is the author of a dozen books.
The brains, the guru, and the one-person rules committee is Lou Ann Frala, who over the same period was a copy editor extraordinaire, catching all the mistakes reporters make and saving many a career. Including Eliot’s!
Lou Ann relies on the most prestigious references for grammar, information, and something we in the business call “style,” a set of standards that ensures a publication’s use of words and phrases is consistent. We’ll explain that farther — sorry, further — in a future segment.
While writing has rules, they were written by people, and language is a living thing. So, rules will change, and not always for the better. (We still “dial” our phone.) Our feature allows for discussion, and we suspect one or more professors, students, authors or journalists will challenge us. Bring it on! The intercourse — of ideas, not what you’re thinking — makes all of us better writers. (Whoops. We almost said, “Makes us all better writers.” Wrong!)
The only rule for comments, is civility. Unlike other rules, that’s an absolute. And at our discretion. Any profanity, personal attack, or — shudder — introduction of politics will get you blocked from commenting.
And, of course, we crave questions, as well as suggestions for future segments. That’s how we’ll keep this feature going.
We’re not the only feature trying to teach proper writing. Many good ones are on the internet, and if you’ve found one that’s helping you, that’s fine. We don’t care who weans you off those orange socks.
Just remember that we are hating the sin but loving the sinner. Our goal is to make the world a better place through proper writing. And have some fun. Many of the goofs are pretty funny.
So check us out for the latest installment of examples of writing that will make you laugh, shudder, roll your eyes, or tense with the realization when you recognize something you have done. (Should there be a comma after “eyes”? That’s for another column.)
NOTE: Eliot and Lou Ann are available for speaking engagements, and can travel. Reach us through the comments section. Just think of all of your employees getting back to work on a Monday, their heads filled with all the ways we’ve shown them to be better communicators!
Next Time: Redundant redundancies
