Catch the Errors Missed by WSJ Editors
On a blog he runs for the Wall Street Journal, Paul R. Martin includes the following quiz, composed of errors that slipped past WSJ editors and made into print. Can you catch the gaffs?
- Mr. Blagojevich, a famously well-quaffed and verbose father of two who cracked an occasional smile after parrying a question.
- A Harvard graduate, Ms. Abramson’s previous roles included deputy bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal.
- A couple years ago after he spent more than a week in Iran to cover the elections and the violent aftermath, Mr. Keller said afterward that the “nicest thing about being in Iran is nobody asked me about” the parlous state of the newspaper industry.
- When I come home, I eat a whole pizza pie and a box of donuts.
- Amid it all stands Mitt Romney, not the high-flying investment lots of Republicans yearned to put their money on.
- Another victim was an 18-year-old who was going to graduate high school Thursday.
- Mr. Bulger was a former president of the Massachusetts State Senate.
- Another other option would use less powerful ordinance, sparing the neighbors in the bombings.
- Fraud involving debit cards, PIN numbers and card processing equipment has increased fivefold over the past five years.
- Speculation coming from Cuba and Venezuela has focused on the possibility that Mr. Chávez has prostrate cancer, and has had his prostrate removed.
I’ve included the answers in the first comment. How’d you do?
I caught them all except #4 because I’ve seen it misspelled so many times (and on donut…er, doughnut shops no less!)
Fun and insightful …thank you, Brian!
~Merri
1. Unless he was inebriated, he was well-coiffed.
2. Her previous roles were a Harvard graduate? (And it was in Washington where she was a deputy bureau chief, we should have known.)
3. A couple of years ago comma. … And delete the redundant afterward.
4. Doughnuts to us.
5. Highflying.
6. Just where is this “graduate high school” she was going to go to? Oh, wait. We meant she was going to graduate from high school Thursday.
7. “Was a former” is redundant for a person who is alive.
8. And another other thing: Ordnance is in order.
9. PIN numbers is an avoidable redundancy. Make it PINs.
10. His prostate has rendered him prostrated and us frustrated (as a correction indicated).