Who among us doesn't delight in finding screw-ups in other people's copy? No one, that's who -- we all love it!
Toronto Star Ombudsman Don Sellar made a little game of it in his column this Saturday. An excerpt:
Nitpicker's Quiz: Find the gaffes
DON SELLAR
Hardly a week goes by without new entries for the Nitpicker's Quiz. Contributions come by e-mail and snail-mail, sometimes by phone.
Each "find" is eloquent testimony to two facts. First, the perfect newspaper is still in an early R&D stage. Second, current production models are subject to human failings of one kind or other.
Here's the latest batch of winning entries, culled from the Star, to test your spelling, word use and grammar skills. (See answers below.)
1. Jay Leno's latest automotive plaything is a 1996 Oldsmobile Toronado hot rod. Its wheels are shod with .... Bridgestone Redline tires that should have been read their last rights. -feature.
2. As a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, John Polanyi of the University of Toronto doesn't usually talk about the role and plight of journalists. But he delivered an impassionate case in a speech in Toronto this week for journalists to question authority. - editorial.
3. The walls have been painted black, the windows covered, the paintings hanged and spotlighted in the multi-level, semicircular Joseph Carrier Gallery. - feature.