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Add Your Own Criminal Sentence!

If you find a particularly terrible sentence somewhere, post it for all to see (go here and put it in the Comments section).

Friday, October 25, 2013

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Criminal Sentence 662: Beable

A dumb typo from a Website:

"Nearly 20% of Americans expect they will never beable to afford to retire, according to a survey by HSBC, a financial services company."

Can those Americans proofread their work?

Monday, October 7, 2013

Criminal Sentence 660: Misplaced ducking

I was disappointed to read this awful sentence in the Wall Street Journal, in an article about how skateboarders are now free to ride around at closed national monuments:

"And now, after years of ducking the national park police that patrol these plazas, this week's closure of public buildings and easing of surveillance offered skaters hope of revisiting their favorite spots."

The problem here is that "this week's closure ... and easing of surveillance" (the subject) does not match up with the modifier at the beginning of the sentence ("after years of ducking the national park police..."). Skaters, not closure/surveillance, have been ducking the police for years.

There's no quick fix here because the sentence is trying to cram in too much. Any volunteers to write two sentences that are more coherent?