You'd do well to "to do well"

If the writer of this article ("Kind stranger donates car to injured hit-and-run student" on Yahoo! Canada News on September 11, 2012) had been feeling generous, she'd have given this sentence an extra word: do should be between to and well. Click the image to enlarge it.

Yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! August 2011

In case you haven't noticed, August 2011 is over. Here, then, is a collection of the errors that were detected on the Yahoo! Canada homepage for that month. For starters, from August 1, there was one T too many in what should have been starlet. Then,

on August 3, the writer of the above got an F for spelling Academy with three A's and no E's. Then,

August 4 blessed us with a twofer. 178 years old should not have had any hyphens, and nonword subsized should have been subsidized. Then,

on August 5, embarrassing was short an R and,

in a baffling error, the first to should have been it. Then,

this line from August 8 should not have included an apostrophe in 1980s. Then,

on August 10, LeBron's what gets help from legend? His headband? More likely, LeBron's name should not have had anything added to it. Then,

August 12 saw three errors. Firstly, a repeated the. Secondly,

an should have been a because rare definitely does not begin with a vowel sound. Thirdly,

premier should have been premiere. After clicking to that article ("Make a Film Foundation and Hollywood celebrities help sick teen Clay Beabout realize his filmmaking dream" on Yahoo! Canada News on August 12, 2011),

I noticed missing hyphens in what should have been 14-year-old, and another shortened premiere. Then,

August 14 featured an incorrect S on bikes in what should have been bike lanes, and

an incorrect apostrophe in what should have been its. Then,

on August 15, this link was to an article ("It's A Girl For Jessica Alba!" on Yahoo! Canada News on August 14, 2011) about Jessica Alba. Oh, and the movie she was in is Sin City. Then,

on August 18 there was another mispelled movie title; this time the victim was The Big Lebowski. Then,

there were several errors on display on August 19. Firstly, the homepage had amoeba correct half the time, but the larger font is the incorrect spelling. Secondly,

woman should have been women. Thirdly,

a T was subtracted from what should have been subtract. After clicking to that article ("Watching television is taking years off your life (basically)" on Yahoo! Canada Shine on August 19, 2011),

I spotted a couple of errors in the first paragraph above. In the second sentence, the word of is missing from between out and the, and less should be fewer. In the second paragraph, watches should be watchers. Then,

back to the homepage, the fourth and final error from August 19 was the absence of hyphens in what should have been a two-year-old's perspective. Then,

on August 20 there was a misspelling of thieves and

a subject-verb disagreement. Yes, scientists make a discovery, but a team makes a discovery. See the difference? Then,

on August 21, it should have been four-month old. Then,

why should have been what on August 22. Also from that day,

quickie is missing its C. Then,

there were several errors on August 24. Firstly, the writer of the above should develop an addiction to dictionaries. Secondly,

there was a hyphen missing from 9,000-year-old (and the article's headline was - and still is - exactly the same). Thirdly,

peak should have been peek. Lastly,
effects should have been affects. Then,

from August 27, is it Eastern Canada or is it eastern Canada? C'mon Yahoo!, you can't have it both ways. Also from that day,

Britney's last name should have been left alone: Spears reveals dream job. Then,

on August 28, Yahoo! couldn't even spell its own Flickr website correctly, and

the article's headline had it wrong as well. The headline has since been corrected but you can still see the misspelling in the web address. Then,

on August 29, this writer probably fibbed on their resume when applying to Yahoo!, because how else can you explain the missing R from what should have been your employment history and the missing E from what should have been interview gaffes? Finally,

also from August 29, the third the should be they. I wonder why Yahoo! is hesitant to actually present themselves as competent and trustworthy. Click an image to enlarge it.

One is too many

The second is in this sentence (from "Vancouver girl Hannah Christensen, 11, writes children’s book in brother’s memory" on Yahoo! Canada News on August 10, 2011) should be erased. Click the image to enlarge it.

Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooo! July 2011

It's time! It's time it's time it's time! It's that time of the month; here are all the errors I detected from the Yahoo! Canada homepage during July 2011. First up, from July 5, is one of the three Ls in willling willing to go in exchange for an actual word? Next,

also from July 5, is it lookalikes or look-alikes? Who cares?! Do both! Then,

on July 6, the writer must have quit trying when they misspelled Casey Anthony's name. Later that same day,

someone misspelled volcano. What could possibly be the reason for so many nonwords on Yahoo!'s homepage? July 7 saw three homepage errors, starting

starting with this one. You see, see should be sees. I clicked to the article ("Woman see mother’s face for first time in five years after photo goes viral on Chinese social network" on Yahoo! Canada News on July 7, 2011),

and saw that the article's actual headline was no better. The second homepage error on July 7

was this misspelling of mortgage. Awful. The third error,

was this misspelling of together. That's nothing to laugh about. On July 11,

there was a twofer: in the first line, dismisse should be either dismisses or dismissed, and in the third line the S in UK's should be lowercase and phone-hacking victim requires a hyphen. I guess that makes it a threefer. Oh well. Then,

also on July 11, a Yahoo! "professional" misspelled entertainment. Moving on,

there was a misspelled girlfriend on July 13 and

an extra word - of - on July 15. The next day (July 16, 2011, to be exact),

there was this amusing misspelling of Milky Way. Later that same day,

both accidently and accidentally are acceptable spellings of the same word, but an online news source should probably stick to using one spelling across the entire news site, let alone in two consecutive lines. Holy crap. Then,

on July 17 the first to should have been left out and

an should be a because there is no way you can convince me that giant starts with a vowel sound. One sleep later,

on July 18, there was a misspelling of skull (the story contained info about an injury to a woman's head and had nothing to do with boats). And that last line is all kinds of terrible - into should be in to and form should be for. That writing is poor form. Later that same day,

I don't know how to fix this because I have no idea what the writer was trying to say. Later again that same day,

Yahoo! shared news about Janis Joplin that I hadn't known: first, that she wrote songs for Rolling Stones, and second, that she had passed away recently. When I clicked to the article ("Writer of tunes made into hits by Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin dies at 80" on Yahoo! Canada News on July 18, 2011) to find out more,

the headline reinforced those facts. The truth is that the word and should replace the comma in both instances. Joplin died in 1970 at age 27. Then,

of should have been off on July 20. A day later,

I was intrigued by this. I couldn't tell if I was misreading it, so I kept rereading it hoping some sense would come of it. Finally I gave in and guessed that cave should have been caves and that a whole lot of caves were going to be filled as part of housing developments or something. So I clicked to the article ("Lascaux's 18,000 year-old cave art under threat" on Yahoo! Canada News on June 23, 2011 AFP) and found out

that my guess was wrong. The story was about one old cave, not several thousand caves. But the headline is also short a hyphen in 18,000-year-old. Then,

on July 23 there was a misspelling of multiculturalism. Not just on the homepage,

but also in the article's headline ("Norway killer attacked multicuturalism, Islam online" on Yahoo! Canada News on July 23, 2011). What's extra special about this one is that while many online news articles are published without a writer's name, this article has two names! Plus,

this immediately follows the final paragraph at the end of the article. Priceless! Oh, and despite many comments in the article's comments section that point out the misspelling, the error in the headline is still there today, more than two weeks after the article was published. Also from July 23,

the single-letter word a does not belong between as and two. In fact, it doesn't belong anywhere in that sentence. Then,

on July 25 a writer apparently didn't know that the pitcher's name is Roger Clemens. Finally,

on July 31 rising should have been raising, and there should probably have been a comma after shopping. That's a wrap for last month's recap. Click an image to enlarge it.