Here’s some miscellaneous usage that has appeared of late.
∎ Continuing the tendency to make compounds of words that have always been separated, the reviewer of a Chicago radio station calls And So It Goes, a film with what can at best be called mixed reviews, “a masterclass in acting.” If this trend continues, he will soon be working for a radiostation.
∎ To flip the coin, an advertisement in the Monitor called an area business “your head quarters” for something or other. This has been one word, headquarters, since the 17th century.
∎ A Netflix mailing envelope asked me to “tell your friends, your parents, and your parent’s friends about Netflix.” Although it is refreshing to actually see an apostrophe used to indicate possession, the singular possessive makes me wonder which parent is friendless.
∎ On a positive note, a box in an elevator at 2 Pillsbury St. needed a key to activate “firefighters’ operation” – a correct plural possessive.
∎ Back to the negative. Stopped in traffic going down Pleasant Street between State and Main, I notice that three consecutive signs in a parking lot are reserved for “governors of office.” The fourth says “governor’s office.” The fifth reverts to “governors office.” Some day I’ll take a walk through the lot and check out the total, but an 80 percent incorrect rate is already bad enough.
∎ A scroll on CNN announces “Cowboys: 6-1 this season (Leads NFL East).” If the lead refers to the record, that’s OK. If it refers to the team, we have an agreement problem, since the verb should be lead.
∎ Another agreement problem. The back of a truck for a landscaping firm says, “There goes the guys who should have taken care of your lawn.” Guys being plural, the verb should be go.
∎ And a third. “When I got up there, there was 12 other women just sitting there,” says a college professor (described as a genius by another character) in the movie Obvious Child. Please, make that “there were 12 other women.”
