The Albatross of Miscommunication

File this under the topic parallelogrammar, because clear and elegantly balanced writing calls for what is termed parallel construction, wherein you stay consistent with grammatical structures.

So, if you start one part of a sentence with the present tense of a verb, don't shift tenses -- just to cite one pretty freaking vague example.

Well, maybe this is best illustrated by the practice of not observing parallel construction.

On the front page of The Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, on July 24, 2008, we find this sentence:

"Corn was flattened by wind and soybeans shredded by hail in the Cato-Meridian area of Cayuga County."

I did a little extra chewing on my Special K Protein Plus cornflakes when I read that.

The wind and the soybeans shredded by hail conspired to flatten corn? Some soybeans!

This former copyeditor of that journal would have insisted on:

"Corn was flattened by wind and soybeans were shredded by hail . . . "

That's just me.

Also, alarmingly, the same newspaper has taken to using ME in headlines, for Medical Examiner. Poor. Poor. Poor.

The Albatross of Statistics and Vocabulary

You may be shocked to hear this:


According to the latest data from The New York Times, via the Bureau of Economic Analysis, via Haver Analytics, fuel is a smaller part of personal budgets (4.2 percent) than it was in 1980 (6 percent).

Incidentally, speaking of the psychology of recession and depression, which Phil Gramm just got crushed for, can't newsreaders and writers find any alternative than soar or soaring to describe fuel prices?