Then vs. Than

This comes from The Oatmeal. Enjoy!

One Little Letter

Then and than. So close, and yet they are not interchangeable. Use "then" when you're talking about something related to time. "Than" is what you use when you're comparing things.

For example: "Then she turned on the cassette player in her car and played More Than Words by her favorite early '90s hair band, Extreme."

Sara J. sent this real estate listing our way. After we got over how much house you can get for $129,000 in some parts of the country (we live where that wouldn't buy you a closet), we had to shake our head sadly at the ad promoting this home.

But...but...but

Oops. An evil twin in this headline, which we found on the Seattle P-I:

Butt-bearing professor fired by university

The Fort Hays State University professor who mooned a colleague during a student debate has been fired.

The Internet has been a-buzz with talk about the profanity-riddled YouTube video that shows William Shanahan, a debate coach at Fort Hays, arguing with University of Pittsburgh debate coach Shanara Reid-Brinkley. During the argument, Shanahan bent over and exposed his underwear.

This is from the AP:

University President Edward H. Hammond also announced Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of speech, but these actions are not acceptable for someone who is representing our university," Hammond said in a written statement.

It should be butt-baring. We all bear butts, even if we can't bear them (or bare them, apparently) in debates.

For the record, SPOGG is on the side of the fired professor. He didn't show skin. The gesture, while crude, therefore couldn't be called obscene by a reasonable person. What's more, it communicated something. The First Amendment has protected expression that falls short of obscenity, especially in public institutions.

Protecting ideas, even if they're communicated in ways that offend some, ought to be more important to universities than protecting sensibilities.

Who's Amused?

Ashleigh sends this in from her law office. It's an ad from a monthly newsletter that goes out to the entire Colorado Bar Association and--oops!--confuses "who's" with "whose."

They do sound exactly alike, but they're not interchangeable. "Whose" is a possessive pronoun. "Who's" is a contraction for who+is. If you can substitute who+is, then you know to use "who's" instead of "whose."

We'd Like Just Desserts

Ah, just desserts. It's what we'd eat if we could, but we like to stay in fighting shape.

This headline, however, should read "just deserts." That's how the expression should be spelled. Deserts are what you deserve. The words share the same root.

Desserts, on the other hand, are rarely handed out as punishments. We do know some people who try to pass sugar-free Jell-O off as dessert. That's pretty punishing in our book.

Iowa pranksters get just desserts: 3,000 forks in their yard
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DUBUQUE, Iowa -- When known pranksters Rick and Marilyn Jones left town for a wedding, neighbors seeking payback eyed their property and decided to stick a fork in it - a few thousand forks, in fact.

Tom and Paula Tschudi planted 3,000 white plastic forks in the Jones' yard and dangled more from the roof, fence and garage.

"We just wanted to do something funny to them, because every time we leave, they pull some prank on us," said Paula Tschudi, who promised to help pick up the forks.

Over the years, the Joneses have strung beer cans like holiday lights around the Tschudis' home, put a for-sale sign in their yard and strung yellow crime-scene tape around chalk outlines of bodies on the sidewalk.

As the Tschudis, their two children and another neighborhood family planted the forks Sunday, one passer-by asked what they were doing.

"We told him we were aerating their lawn," Paula Tschudi said with a laugh.

So Is He Saying Merlin is Fat?

This is from A.O. Scott's review of "Shrek the Third" in the New York Times:

Meanwhile the disgraced Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), exiled to a career in dinner theater, organizes a rebellion of fairy-tale villains. Eric Idle plays Merlin as a hippy druid, and Larry King and Regis Philbin do fine work as ugly stepsisters. And of course Eddie Murphy is the indispensable Donkey.

Now, Eric Idle isn't quite as trim as he was during his Monty Python days (and honestly, neither are we. Nonetheless, we believe the word Mr. Scott meant to use is "hippie."

We Know Who We'd Send to Detention

SPOGG scout Viktoria V. sends this error from Indiana. It's a description of a home-detention program for good criminals, apparently. But it contains a goof that would cause the grammar police to reach for their red pens and handcuffs:

The Home Curfew program is designed as a reward for individuals who have displayed the ability to follow every aspect of the Home Detention program for
at lease 45 days. In order to be eligible for Home Curfew one must show a strong adherence to the rules and regulations, make a consistent effort in paying fees, and are recommended by their respective field officer.

Here is a direct link to the offense: http://www.indygov.org/eGov/County/Corrections/Services/Detention/home.htm

It is under the title, “Home Detention Curfew Program.”

That should be "at least."

And while we're at it, can we say how much we hate the word "individuals" as a synonym for "people"? It's not ungrammatical, but it's pompous. We hate pomposity, which is why we didn't put "whom" in our headline even though strict grammar rules call for it. There is such a thing for having an ear for informal usage, and we applaud that sensibility.

Here's how we'd rewrite that paragraph to strip away the oleaginous pomposity, if we may indulge in such vocabulary while picking on the very same thing:

The Home Curfew program rewards people who have obeyed the program rules for at least 45 days. To be eligible, you must obey the rules, pay your fees, and earn the recommendation of your field officer.

There. Isn't that better?

Bless You, Fox News

They edited this before we could snag a screen shot, but check out this evil word twin Fox News accidentally posted yesterday as a headline:

Key Milestone Reached in Drive to Beautify Pope John Paul II

It is hard to leave a beautiful corpse unless you live fast and die young, and we don't think the Popemobile can go above 20MPH. It's beatify people. Beatify.

(Thanks to Mrs. McC for the swell find.)