Lather, rinse, donate to charity

While no reputable news organization would reprint the claim that a shampoo might make one munificent, the folks at Oribe Hair Care hold no such reservations:

Oribe Shampoo for Magnificent Volume
Because everyone needs a little largesse.

Where largess is the common American spelling (and largesse the French form), each refers not to volume, but to generosity. Your scalp won't likely know the difference, but careful copywriters certainly ought to.

Tin Ear Syndrome plagues the Big Easy

Feb. 4, 2009
D.C. catches the wrong Mardi Gras spirit
By John Maginnis
The Times-Picayune

Here, John Maginnis and his editors in New Orleans prove that tin ears are not exclusive to the Motor City:

The prudes notwithstanding, the second-lining Louisiana crowd actually was right in step with action on Capitol Hill ...

And again in the same article:

The president and the Democratic leadership easily could separate the true stimulus portions of the package, tax cuts and ready-to-go public works projects, from the creation of new agencies and broad policy changes that will take longer to implement and last longer still.

The editors at the Times-Picayune could easily separate themselves from such misguided pedantry if they'd only open their ears — and their stylebooks. Yes, Virginia, it's perfectly acceptable to split the infinitive (and phrasal verbs) in English. Always has been.

Sins of omission

Feb. 11, 2009
Cars Capable of Making a Political Statement
By Rex Roy
The Detroit News

In the lead to a recent column, auto writer Rex Roy inadvertently omits the apostrophe required by a quasi possessive phrase:

There's no doubt that a driver's personality shines through in whatever he or she drives. As proof, try this: Who do you picture climbing down from a jacked-up Dodge Ram pickup? Yep. I see the same guy in a baseball cap with an untucked shirt and about three days worth of beard.

Roy's driver sports a beard he's been growing for three days, which, correctly written, is three days' worth of beard. Or perhaps better phrased, a three-day-old beard.

In any event, phrases such as this (other common examples include two weeks' notice and three weeks' vacation) most definitely require an apostrophe. But it's all-too-often absent from today's newspapers.

The Detroit Free Press, in fact, often runs a piece in its sports section titled "Two Cents Worth." Sadly, they, too, omit the apostrophe required of a quasi possessive.

Fair thee well?

Feb. 16, 2009
Ex-teammate says Culpepper will start at QB in 2009
By Carlos Monarrez
Detroit Free Press

I don't mean to pick on Carlos Monarrez and his editors at the Freep again, but they've inadvertently given us another example today of how Spell Check can't prevent everything:

" ... [Quarterback Daunte] Culpepper, who faired poorly with four touchdowns and six interceptions in five starts last season, is due a $2.5-million roster bonus at the end of the month."

Although the journeyman quarterback has indeed fared poorly thus far in a Lions uniform, some fans might argue that he still hasn't been given a fair shot.

To split or not to split

Jan. 18, 2009
From Georgetown to the NFL, Jim Schwartz is known for work ethic
By Carlos Monarrez
Detroit Free Press

"Jim Schwartz always has stood out."

Those six words constitute Monarrez's lead in his piece on the newest Detroit Lions coach, Jim Schwartz. (Godspeed, Coach.)

And they illustrate a common fear in modern American journalism:
The fear of (gasp!) splitting the infinitive. (Or, in this case, the splitting of a phrasal verb.)

This is a phenomenon I've noticed in the Detroit Free Press over the last several months.
No longer, it seems, will Freep editors allow an infinitive or phrasal verb to be split in the pages of their newspaper.

But I suggest those editors suffer from a chronic case of TES:
Tin Ear Syndrome.

Let's see if you, too, suffer from TES. ...

Say these two sentences out loud:

A. "Jim Schwartz always has stood out."
B. "Jim Schwartz has always stood out."

Which sounds best to you?

If you chose B, congratulations.
You have perfect pitch.

Both sentences are grammatically correct.
In option B, the word always splits has stood.
Despite what your elementary and high-school English teachers might've taught you, this is perfectly acceptable in English. It is only in Latin where that practice is rightly frowned upon.

As for option A, I'm sorry to say, Carlos, but it sounds as if it were spoken by a robot.
Here in the real world, the best English is most often conversational English.
Even in the newspaper.

For you Trekkies (and Trekkers) out there, Monarrez's example in today's Free Press is akin to the following:

"To go boldly where no man has gone before."

Ah, but Gene Roddenberry did not have a tin ear.
Which is why his show is remembered for the tag line "to boldly go where no man has gone before." Not only is it grammatically correct, but it simply sounds better.

It's vs. its

Two all-too-common print errors, courtesy of the Detroit Free Press. Here we see the Freep misuse it's for its, as well as predominately for predominantly, all in one sentence:

Jan. 16, 2009
Detroit's top lawyer resigns over 'ghetto' remarks
By Zachary Gorchow and David Ashenfelter

" ... Leavey said she was referring to long lines and slow service at the court – not it’s (sic) predominately (sic) African-American group of judges and rejected Atkins’ labeling of her as a racist. ..."

The contraction it's does not yet predominate in print for its, but it certainly could if not for our profession's eagle-eyed copy editors.