On cliched blunders, pants that stretch out like football games, and clothing avalanches
Grammar | June 29, 2010
This morning, my Facebook news feed (because that’s how we all obtain information these days, right?) linked me to this gem of a piece of writing:
Why yes, I do list Make It or Break It as a TV show I like and, therefore, do get updates from them. No, I haven’t seen the season premiere, but yes, I do plan on watching it as soon as humanly possible. And yes, I love bad TV shows. That’s not the point.
Let’s play a game of Guess the Grammatical Error, shall we?
Here are the answers:
This isn’t really grammatical, but that first sentence can be reduced to half its current length. “Lauren looks fit and fabulous in this black and turquoise tracksuit number” means the same thing. Plus, you’ve got alliteration going on with “fit and fabulous.”
- “Just because your hitting or leaving the gym”
Just no. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO. What a trite mistake.
- “The most flattering cut for workout pants are”
I’m going to give the author much more leeway than he/she deserves and pretend “cut” is a typo.
- “workout pants stretch out overtime”
Like sports games, right? No. Pants stretch out over time. People get old over time. People work overtime, and basketball and football games run into overtime.
In the same vein: Grammatical errors are an everyday occurrence. We make grammatical errors every day. There’s a difference. “Everyday” is usually an adjective.
- “you don’t want to be worrying about your pants falling on during your workout”
Oh, I see. Nobody worries about their pants falling off. They only worry about their pants falling on. Because clothes are super heavy and it’s the end of the world if an article of clothing happens to fall on a person. Also, if people are so worried about their pants falling on them when they work out, does that mean they don’t wear pants in the first place?! Not a sight I want to see.
Oh, dear. I can forgive one, MAYBE two errors, but that piece of writing is like a festering pile of terrible grammar.
(And I love bad TV shows too, so it’s cool.)
Oh my. This hurts my eyes because I’m usually quite anal when it comes to grammatical errors as well. I love the internet, but I hate the effects that it’s had on people’s grammar. :/
I love this. I am a total grammar freak too
It annoys my friends, a lot. I’m usually their grammar editor 
Wei-Wei
Sometimes, you’ve got to wonder how these pieces get past the editor (surely, at the very least they would read over it at least once…) and gets published!
Wow that was pretty epic. I try to catch most of my errors, and if they did a spell/grammar check… I’d hate to see what it looked like in the rough draft.
Gahhhh, and that’s why I don’t subscribe to anything on Facebook.
Ha ha, I wish I could catch my errors but being dyslexic means they go unnoticed even wordpress doesn’t pick up on them *sigh*
I don’t see the problem with his/her use of “cut”. Unless you’re referring to the subject-predicate disagreement with “cut” and “are”. In that case, yeah, but then you would just change “are” to “is”. The cut of pants is totally right.
It’s a style thing.
I didn’t mean that there was anything wrong with the choice of word itself — it just should be “cuts,” plural, not only because that would make it agree with “are,” but also because the author goes on to talk about two different types of cuts.
My not being able to write clearly ftl.