Standing Up for the American Dream

This group is called SEIU. And they have an American dream. Unfortunately, they spelled “American” wrong.

CNN.com article on May 3, 2010

Showing 13th Paragraph of CNN.com article

The headline of this article featured on the front page of CNN.com caught my eye, just as a headline should.   But as I read it,  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  In the 13th paragraph the words “they” and “they’s” show up where the words “the” and “they’re” should have been.   They’s???

Error:

West Valley police say Josh Powell is they only person they’s looking at, but they are not calling him a suspect in his wife’s disappearance. They say they have no physical evidence of foul play.

Correction:

West Valley police say Josh Powell is the only person they’re looking at, but they are not calling him a suspect in his wife’s disappearance. They say they have no physical evidence of foul play.

I’ve contacted CNN.com for remedial action.  Let’ see if the Copy Desk are quick to respond.

Click here to see full article.

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At 12 noon EDT, CNN.com updated the article and included the corrections.   Nice turnaround, guys!

Showing CNN.com's correction in the 13th paragraph

Click here to see full article and correction.

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Photo By Deletia

Deletia, thanks for the mobile upload!  Here’s what she had to say:

Monro Brake is attempting to advertise “Trust and Confidence Every Day,” (or if they wanted to use the adjective form to convey that trust & confidence are commonplace there, “Everyday Trust and Confidence.”)  I spotted a typo in The Big Four where “everyday” was used where “every day” should’ve been.  John commented that he does the same thing at times.  Here’s more proof that he’s not alone!

So that we can all learn something here, according to WiseGeek, “The difference between ‘everyday’ and ‘every day’ is quite simple, and there is an easy rule of thumb which you can use to determine which phrase would be suitable. In short, ‘everyday’ is an adjective which describes something ordinary or commonplace, while the phrase ‘every day’ means ‘each day.’ Confusing these two is a very common grammatical error, and learning to catch this error can improve the quality of your writing immensely.”