Question: What to do with quotes.

My Stephen Colbert calendar strikes again.

It reads: "How can you suggest we slam the door"?

It should read: "...slam the door?"

We just talked about this today in class. When the question is the quote, the question goes INSIDE the quote.

Plural Possessive

100,000,000 against facebook owning it's user's photos!

This greeted my inbox on facebook a couple mornings ago. Facebook is kind of a big deal, and definitely has more than one user, so it should be users'. Plural possessive

Yum...pie.

From my Stephen Colbert daily calendar:

"A limo driver has been dispatched to bring Tucker Carlson, James Carville and A Boston Creme Pie from MSNBC headquarters...

Should say: "a boston creme pie..."

We don't need to capitalize boston creme pie. It's not needed. It's not a proper noun.

LOL

Another funny post.

What are these people thinking? 's implies possession, not multiple of something. I know it's tempting, but fight the urge!

Those Tricky Possessives

Haha...too funny not to share.

On a grammar fail site, I found this gem from an official University of Michigan posting. 

Possessives can be tricky, but in this case it's fairly straightforward. 'Desposit's' should be deposits--there is just more than one. It doesn't belong to anything.

The Lovely Mrs. Beckham

Not to beat up on perezhilton.com tonight, (I realize he's not exactly a journalist), but his website DID have 20 million hits last month, so one would hope he would write correctly. 

With posts like this, we can't be too sure.

Gosh.  

It reads: And we love Mrs. Beckham, because ridiculous or not, she's not afraid to try something different. 

Should read: And we love Mrs. Beckham because, ridiculous or not, she's not afraid to try something different. 

Rule: When we want to set off non-essential information, we use commas. In this case, 'ridiculous or not' in the non-essential info. 

No Doubt

Full disclosure: No Doubt is one of my favorite bands. So the news that they have tickets going on sale at cheaper prices makes me totally happy. What I'm not so thrilled about: The fifth paragraph of the story.

It says, "Fan club members were required to pay a $15 dollar fee but with the charge came access to the band's entire digital audio catalog as well as stickers, magnets, and iron-ons promoting the tour!

Should say: ...magnets and iron-ons...

Check it out.

We don't need a comma after magnets. AP style doesn't dictate running, or serial, commas.

No.

Today in class,  a (normally very well-spoken professor) wrote this on the board:

The United States shouldn't be going to the Iraq.

Rule: The Iraq? We don't need a 'the' here. For a more extended example, check out this infamous clip: