GrammarPhile Blog

Presidential primaries and caucuses were front and center this week on Super Tuesday. In that same spirit, we’ve decided to do a little polling too — in the form of a proofreading quiz. The format’s a little different than what we’ve done before, but the prize is the same: a $25 Amazon gift card for the person who submits the most correct answers. In the event of a tie, the earlier submission wins.

Thanks to everyone who took our proofreading quiz last week. Congratulations to Arlene Gregoire, who missed just three of the 51 errors, including some of the sneakiest ones.

The mistakes that tripped up most people appeared in the second and third sentences of paragraph 3: decreases/increases insulin and hyper/hypoglycemic. These errors go beyond basic grammar and punctuation mistakes, many of which Microsoft Word will highlight, and require a closer read to ensure the text makes sense.

  School’s out (or nearly out) across the nation and summer vacation beckons. We thought another proofreading quiz would be a good way to kick off the summer fun.

The five numbered paragraphs below are laced with errors — some glaring and some that are less obvious. But they’re all unequivocally wrong. Acceptable variations — such as words with different spellings (e.g., advisor, adviser) or sentences that could be punctuated multiple ways — are not included here.

Thanks to everyone who entered our proofreading quiz last week. Congratulations to Barb Poole, who submitted both the first and the winning entry, missing just four of the 57 errors — even some of the sneaky ones.

The two mistakes that tripped up most people both appeared in paragraph 4: “airways” and “vaccine.” Regarding the first, we have only one airway, which is the area in the throat through which air passes to and from the lungs. The second word should be “vaccination.” Vaccine is the product; vaccination is the process. Consumers can’t “get” a vaccine other than through vaccination, so “vaccination” is the correct term here.

Now for the rest of the answers …