Nagourney and Zeleney: Grammar Thugs

Obama Chooses Biden as Running Mate

Selection Ends Two-Month Search

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who Mr. Obama had defeated in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention…

Is pronoun case passé at the NYT? Or do macho Nagourney and Zeleny consider using “whom” too girly for their rockum-sockum copy?

Biden and the Foreign Policy Call

By Mark J. Penn

Mr. Gore complimented Bill Clinton and projected an image of a new generation to government.

The word you want is "complemented" as in “completed.” Good lord. That such language baboons get the front-page, above-the-fold perch signals a march to the swamps of illiteracy.

Posted on Grammargrinch.blogspot.com as a cautionary tale lee drury de cesare

Elliptical Clause Eludes Friedman

Op-Ed Columnist
Flush With Energy
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: August 9, 2008 To be sure, Denmark is much smaller than us and was lucky to discover some oil in the North Sea.

“Than us” should be “than we” because “we” is subject of the elliptical clause “we [are].” If the writer thinks “than we” sounds funny, he should finish the clause and write “we are.”

La Dowd Messes Up Comma

Op-Ed Columnist

McCain’s Green-Eyed Monster

MAUREEN DOWD

Published: August 5, 2008

WASHINGTON

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Not since Iago and Othello obsessed on the comely Cassio, not since Richard of Gloucester killed his two nephews, not since Nixon and Johnson glowered at the glittering J.F.K., has there been such an unseemly outpouring of boy envy.

The comma after "J.F.K." cuts the basic sentence in two: "Not since Iago obsessed on the comely Cassio...has there been..."