For some reason, comparative constructions with “than†or “as†give us no end of trouble. Probably the most common lapse is using “than†when “as†is called for â€" for example, “She raised more than three times as much money in the campaign than Mr. Smith.†But there are more arcane stumbles, as well. Look carefully at all such expressions.
Two recent missteps:
---
Institutions like the British Museum and the Smithsonian recognize that they cannot compete with Wikipedia’s popularity. Many more people searching for information online about the Smithsonian go to Wikipedia rather than the Smithsonian’s own Web site.
“Rather than†means “instead of†or “in place of.†It is used with two either/or alternatives â€" “X rather than Y†â€" not with “more†in an expression of comparison or degree. (Also, note that this sentence needed another “to†to keep the comparison parallel.) Make it “Many more people … go to Wikipedia than to the Smithsonian’s own Web site.â€
---
The Yankees didn’t have to make Monday night a spectacle on steroids, so to speak. But they couldn’t help themselves any more than baseball for years turned a blind collective eye while players made an institutional farce out of the sport.
This garbled sentence (later fixed) said the opposite of what we meant. “Any more than†after a negative construction makes what follows negative, as well â€" “I can’t do it any more than you can†means that neither of us can do it. So we needed to say something like “they couldn’t help themselves any more than baseball could, when for years it turned a blind eye …â€
Â
When Spell-Check Can’t Help
Still more sound-alike problems.
---
Inside Mr. de Blasio’s campaign, aides talk about the need to simultaneously recognize Mr. Bloomberg’s triumphs, on issues like the smoking ban, and tap into a widespread desire for a change. “The remedy verses replica theory,†as one adviser put it, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the adviser was not authorized to disclose strategy.
Make it “versus.â€
---
“Now we’re going to come out and tell everybody that they’ve accomplished nothing this year and we’ve been peddling backward?†Ms. Russell said. “It’s depressing.â€
A surprisingly common error. What you do on a bike is “pedalingâ€; selling things is “peddling.â€
Â
In a Word
This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
---
Instead of assiduously sifting fact from conjecture and trying to sort out discrepancies, Mr. Salerno and Mr. Shields are often content to lay back and simply let sources speak for themselves.
Lie, not lay.
---
Everyone who walks into a Tesla showroom has to be persuaded by someone like Mr. Berkley to become an early adapter â€" someone willing to take a gamble on a largely unproven $71,000 electric car that needs to be both reliable and safe.
Early adopter, not adapter.
---
MEXICO CITY â€" The memorial to Mexico’s victims of violence looks like it has been dropped from the sky by an angry God.
“Looks as if,†not “like.â€
---
A politically astute new generation of ultra-Orthodox leaders has become savvy at navigating the halls of government, while the grand rabbis of Hasidic sects wield electoral power like few religious leaders can, turning followers into cohesive voting blocs.
A similar problem: “wield electoral power as few religious leaders can.â€
---
Girardi disapproved strongly on Sunday because he believed Dempster was acting as a vigilante sending a message to Rodriguez, whom several Red Sox players said should not be playing while he appeals his 211-game ban.
Make it “who,†not “whom.†The pronoun is not the object of “saidâ€; it is the subject of “should not be playing.â€
---
[Photo caption] Elmore Leonard in Detroit last year. He was admired both for his westerns and his crime novels, many made into movies.
Not parallel. Make it “for both his westerns and his crime novels,†or drop the “both.â€
---
Eventually he narrows his sights on Grace, a forceful, deeply serious woman who all but bleeds for her charges, then he begins building a larger story around her.
This is a run-on. End the sentence or insert a semicolon after “her charges,†or else insert “and†before “then.â€
---
I am thinking about Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who heads â€" yes! â€" the House Science Committee. And Sen. Ted Cruz, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space, who demanded that we “do what needs to be done†to prevent an asteroid from hitting the earth and smashing into a major American city.
Not our style. Make it “Representative Lamar Smith†and “Senator Ted Cruz.â€
---
In 2009, Ms. Burch started her own foundation to support women entrepreneurs by offering business loans, mentoring and entrepreneurial education.
Avoid “women†as a modifier. Make it “female entrepreneurs.â€
---
[Web summary] As a host of CNN’s revived “Crossfire,†Newt Gingrich will become a member of the news media that he once bashed. “And I hope to move it to the right,†he said.
“Bashed†is informal in general, and certainly in this context.
---
The memo also estimated that about 33,000 spouses were covered under its insurance plan for white-collar employees and that “about 15,000 of these would have health care coverage available through their own employers.â€
If you have “estimated,†you don’t need “about.â€
---
[Subheading] After spending time in an internment camp, a sculpture went on to find fame.
Here we were referring to Ms. Asawa, the sculptor, not one of her works. This was fixed in time for the late edition.
---
The two men, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19, each face a count of obstructing justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carry maximum penalties of 20 years and 5 years in prison, respectively.
“Two,†“both,†“each†and “respectively� That’s confusing. Rewrite and simplify.
---
Mr. Ligon yelled “my Japanese yell â€" ‘Hi-YA!’†he said. “I hit him in the top of the head with my fist.†The intruder fell to the sidewalk and ran away, losing a sneaker in his escape. The police took it for evidence. He remains at large.
At least his wife was not there. “She would have killed him,†he said.
Shifting antecedents can cause confusion for a moment or more. Here, we might have made clear in the last paragraph that “his†and “he†refer to Mr. Ligon (though the antecedent of “him†is the intruder).
---
If she would have prevailed Friday, she would have become the career leader at the world track and field championships with nine gold medals: one ahead of her American predecessors Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson.
Make it “If she had prevailed …â€
---
Reflecting her central role in German politics â€" even her Social Democratic opponents feature Ms. Merkel on their campaign posters â€" a new Web page (www.angela-merkel.de) features pictures from her childhood and youth that seemed designed â€" like Tuesday’s school visit â€" to dispel any whiff of closeness to the Communists who led East Germany.
Using two pairs of dashes in a sentence gives the prose a zigzag, hard-to-follow quality. This long sentence could be broken up. At a minimum, the phrase “like Tuesday’s school visit†could have been set off with commas rather than dashes. Also, the “www.†is not needed to reach the Web site and should therefore have been omitted.
---
Larry’s loyal former protégée Sheryl Sandberg aside, it evokes a sexism of complacency â€" just a bunch of alpha males who prefer each others’ company.
“One another†would probably be preferable to “each other†here, and in either case the apostrophe should be placed before the “s.â€
---
[Subheading] L.C. King Manufacturing in Bristol, Tenn., has been called a diamond in the rough for its old ways. Even Toyko hipsters love its workwear. Now, as fashion embraces Made in America, can it be a 21st-century brand?
Tokyo, not Toyko, of course. We should be extra careful proofreading headlines and subheads.
---
Eack pack contains ground coffee and a filter. …
To accomodate puncturing without cracking, the K-Cup pack uses seven layers of different plastics. The Vue Pack uses a single layer of polypropelene that can be recycled at sites accepting No. 5 plastic.
This graphic needed another round of editing. Each, accommodate, and polypropylene are the correct spellings.
---
[Home page summary] The complaint said the proposed deal between American Airlines and US Airways, which would create the nation’s biggest airline, would threaten competition and drive up the cost of fares.
Redundant; the fare is the cost. We meant it would drive up fares, or drive up the cost of travel, but not “drive up the cost of fares.†(This was later fixed.)
---
Although Mancini insisted that her father did not want to be revived, he was given medical attention and brought to a local hospital, where his condition stabilized.
Taken, not brought. From The Times’s stylebook:
bring, take. Use bring to mean movement toward the speaker or writer; take means movement away from the speaker or writer (in fact, any movement that is not toward the speaker or writer). So the Canadian prime minister cannot be bringing a group of industrialists to a conference in Detroit, except in an article written from Detroit. Since datelines do not govern headlines, bring in a Times headline usually refers to movement toward New York, or toward the United States.
---
The most recent earnings released by the Times Company show that it swung to a profit in the second quarter, with gains in digital subscriptions, though it still faced a challenging advertising market.
“Challenging†is a P.R. euphemism in this context; let’s avoid it.
---
[Subheading] If there was a drug that could make me a better, faster, more brilliant storyteller, would I take it?
Use the subjunctive for this contrary-to-fact condition: “if there were a drug,†not “was.â€
---
They spoke about how and when to listen to an evermore assertive audience.
“Ever more†should be two words here.
---
Mr. Buckley wrote prolifically, founded The National Review, hosted “Firing Line†and even ran for mayor of New York, but to some he remains first and foremost the author of “God and Man at Yale,†a call for the restoration of what he saw as traditional values at his alma mater.
As the stylebook notes, it is “National Review,†without “the.â€
---
She rejected the city’s arguments that more stops happened in minority neighborhoods solely because those happened to have high-crime rates.
The hyphen was unnecessary here.
---
Helping print journalism adapt to a changed era is becoming a cause de jour among the technology elite.
The French expression, if we really needed to use French, would be “du jour.†Same with soup.
---
As to Rodriguez’s return, Dunham said she would be rooting for him to help the Yankees, who she said are “doing really lousy. Now I know what my husband feels like all the time. He’s a Mets fan.â€
A quotation with one or more full sentences should not begin with a fragment. Recast.
---
The 2011 article, based on employee disciplinary records obtained through the state’s Freedom of Information Law, found that the state fired only about 23 percent of the workers that had been recommended for job termination by their supervisors.
Make it “the workers who had been recommended.â€
---
Law enforcement officials have said that neither the investigations of Ms. Davis nor Mr. Spitzer uncovered any evidence to support her claim.
The neither/nor construction is not parallel. Rephrase, perhaps simply like this: “the investigations of Ms. Davis and of Mr. Spitzer uncovered no evidence to support her claim.â€
---
PARIS â€" When Miroslav Miskovic posted a record $16 million bail late last month after spending more than seven months in jail on charges of fraud and tax evasion, the outsized sum solidified the reclusive 68-year-old tycoon’s reputation as one of the Balkans’ richest businessmen, even as it breached his well-known preference for understatement and invisibility.
The stylebook prefers “outsize.â€
---
Enthused by the passionate response, he decided to speak with every teacher on campus about his or her discipline.
Our dictionary classifies “enthused†as informal. Also, the cumbersome “his or her†could be avoided by making the whole expression plural â€" “all the teachers on campus about their disciplines.â€
---
But since Bolt won the 100 at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 by a margin of two-tenths of a second, the gap between he and the field has steadily narrowed with each major final.
Between him and the field, of course, not he and the field.
---
In a city where white residents are becoming a minority of the voting population, the family-centric strategy has allowed Mr. de Blasio, who is Italian-American, to portray himself as a paragon of modern, middle-class, multicultural New York: Ms. McCray is black and the couple has two children, Dante and Chiara, 18.
In this instance, “couple†should have been plural: “the couple have…†See the stylebook entry:
couple may be either singular or plural. Used in reference to two distinct but associated people, couple should be construed as a plural: The couple were married in 1952. The couple argued constantly; they [not it] even threw punches. When the idea is one entity rather than two people, couple may be treated as a singular: Each couple was asked to give $10; The couple was the richest on the block. In general, couple causes fewer problems when treated as a plural.
---
Fiona Shaw, the Irish actress and director â€" and Ms. Warner’s frequent collaborator (most notably, in a 1995 staging of “Richard II,†in which she played Richard, and in Tony Kushner’s translation of Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children†in 2009) will take over the production.
The dash and the parentheses sent this overstuffed sentence off track. Rephrase.
