A little harsh, don't you think?

While inserting 'up' as a sloppy way to help verbs is well established, it's still wrong. Unless you're writing this sign. And in that case, make the error, because cleaning your dog's euphemistically describe poop seems unnecessary.

OK, now what?

Tip: Add copy to explain new business model or be courteous enough to provide link to the tabloid story that led to the posting of this notice.

Experts share writing tips

Tiger Woods' apology, visualized

Funny Sunday Headlines

Nothing better than potty humor from the newspapers to enliven a Sunday morning:

• From the Marin IJ: Teasing a story about a local female skier, editors on page 1 presented: “Armenian Team Taps Skier From Novato.”

This is one of those verb choices that, while tailor-made for tight-real estate newsprint, really should be stricken from the copy desk’s tool belt.

• From the New York Times, a photo caption accompanying the story "A Balance Between the Factory and the Local Farm" reads:

Pavle Milic decided to serve only Arizona wines at FnB, his Scottsdale restaurant. He says that in blind teste tests, people think that the wines come from famous wine regions.

I don't know about you, but a teste test sounds really unpalatable, until you discover that the singular of testes is testis.

Even so, don't look for Rocky Mountain Oysters for Mr. Milic's customers, it appears--test or no test.

Dear Twitter, Please Take Bonehead English

Every time we get an email notification from Twitter informing us that some new, smart, sentient human being is now following us, Twitter bots CAN'T GET IT RIGHT! We're instructed:

"You may follow (person's name) as well by clicking on the 'follow' button on their profile."

Jesus H. Christ! Hey, Biz Stone, (btw, I'm blogging on one of your earlier creations, thank you) 99 percent of the people who follow other people are people (or more precisely a person). That takes the SINGULAR PRONOUN. Please change your email notifications so that it reads

"You may follow (person's name) as well by clicking on the 'follow' button on his or her profile."
Or
"You may follow (person's name) as well by clicking on the 'follow' button on the user's profile."

We're cutting back on education funding in these dark economic times, Biz. Don't contribute to the dumbing down of America with one of the most popular social media features of the day.

Paging New York Times' Copy Chief

The headline on Billy Preston's obituary in the renowned New York Times:

Obituary: Billy Preston, 59, reknowned keyboardist

Yes, it seems we all knowed Billy Preston.

P.S. Preston died in 2006, and if memory serves, The Times hadn't gutten its staff just yet.