ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Eminem disagrees.

http://www.blindiforthekids.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/eminem-old-times-sake-feat-dr-dre-300x300.jpg

yeah but he also wrote one of his letters backwards

It's pretty hard to imagine someone saying "for the sake of old time"

these are insane computer time's we live in

It is even harder to imagine someone saying "For the sake of old time feat. Dr. Dre."

for the sake of old lang time?

what a horribly formed joek

Two that have been bugging me in '10:
"Kills germs by millions on contact"
"Purpose for your visit"

"Purpose of", or "reason for", yes; but "purpose for"??

I think the best response to "purpose for your visit" would be "yes, are you offering?"

To which the best response would be stares.

Took me a long time to parse this sentence, on a small poster pinned to a local tree:

HUGE USED BABY AND CHILD CLOTHES AND ITEMS SALE

Not helped by a big picture of a baby. How could they have said this so it didn't lead me to wonder what the huge baby had been used for?

Baby clothes for sale- used. Huge.

cf. hoardings occasionally seen declaring GIANT SHIRT SALE.

Huge sale of baby and child clothes and items - used.

"Darling v Osborne: who do you trust?"

I know it really ought to be "whom", but it looks unnecessarily finnicky in a headline. Thoughts?

would 'which do you trust' be wrong?

If you grant Darling and Osborne personhood, then which is wrong. If you don't, fill yer boots.

Darling v Osborne: do you find one slightly less untrustworthy than the other?

Limited character count, people!

"Darling vs Osborne: Which?"

& personhood be damned, lack of it didn't harm blair for a start

The results are in...

"Darling v Osborne: who’s got the edge?"

Heh.

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/blog/edge.jpg

Are you "hot on the trail" of someone or "hot on the tail"? Or do they mean different things?

believe it's the first in reference to hunting dogs. have never heard of the second usage

What surprises me is that that "hot on the tail" has so many more hits in Google than "hot on the trail". I expected it to be closer.

'hot on the trail' = About 215,000 results

'hot on the tail' = About 2,870,000 results

Oh, those links buggered up:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=SRK&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=%22hot+on+the+trail%22&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=SRK&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=%22hot+on+the+tail%22&aq=f&aqi=g5&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

huh. maybe it's in reference to chasing an animal?

Prob confusion between "on (someone's) trail" and "tailing" someone in a surveillance way.

At least some of the results for "hot on the tail of" seem to use it as synonymous with "in the wake of"/"shortly after."

I'd use "hot on the heels"
About 59,700,000 results (0.39 seconds)

Hm, same problem I think - I'd usually expect that to mean "soon after" rather than pursuing something.

Or do they mean different things?

Both are metaphors, but each invokes a slightly different image. To be hot on the trail of someone or something implies following a scent or other vestiges of passage. To be hot on the tail of someone or something implies following closely enough to have the object almost within one's grasp, certainly within sight.

The other suggested variant, of being hot on the heels, implies an even stronger degree of closeness.

Obv, you can use any phrase that adequately expresses what you want to convey. There's no need to employ the most common one, if something else says it better.

When you have a phrasal verb which finishes with 'on' and the next word in the sentence is 'to', you don't combine them into 'onto', do you?
E.g.
He went on to become a laywer v He went onto become a lawyer
She moved on to the next task v She moved onto the next task
I feel the first form is right and second one wrong, but I'm having a crisis of confidence.

don't combine

i am in harbl agreement

Same here. A small peeve of mine.

yeah, 'onto' implies 'on top of' for me. He climbed onto a lawyer

not saying that it can't ever be used, so

Beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers' effect on risk of stroke

Does "beta-blockers" need an apostrophe too?

(yes they are different effects)

Then does effect need to be plural?

how about "The effect[s] of beta blockers and calcium channel blockers on [the] risk of stroke"

It's a headline, I can't make it that much longer. I went with one apo & effects.

i feel like beta-blockers needs its own apostrophe but i am not 100% sure

But it'll look uglier and besides, only doctors are reading it.

HUGE USED BABY AND CHILD CLOTHES AND ITEMS SALE

a week late, but for a second I read this as "we are selling a gigantic pre-owned baby, plus some other stuff"

I think that's why it was posted?

http://www.slate.com/id/2258669/

This is a tedious grammar question, but is Levin's "First, there need to be a load of top-notch free agents," grammatically correct? Presumably it should be "there needs," no? I hunted around for answer, but couldn't find anything -- anyone know?

the economist style guide has some sensible suggestions for dealing with collective nouns: basically, follow the sense rather than strict number, eg treat "a couple" and "a pair" as plural. "a load" to my ear implies combining into a single undifferentiated mass, so i'd go for "needs". (although you could justify it as written: "a load of" as just a colloquial adjectival phrase meaning "many".)

http://www.economist.com/research/styleguide/index.cfm?page=805687