The first, from the article, For the Spy on Your List: Gift Guide 2011 which you can access at this link: http://news.discovery.com/tech/spy-gadgets-gift-guide-111123.html, I offer up this little gem:
Piece of mind for $99.99
Piece? Really? Now this would work IF you're actually going to give someone a piece of your mind. However, this sentence is talking about an emotion - i.e., PEACE. If you want "peace of mind," then $99.99 doesn't sound like such a bad price. But if someone is going to give me a "piece of their mind," then I expect to get it for free.
The second article, Early Humans Were Skilled Deep-Sea Fisherman, found at this link: http://news.discovery.com/history/ancient-human-fishermen-111128.html, has an egregious grammatical error.
The site where the discoveries were made, known as Jerimalai cave, is a small rock overhang hidden behind in foliage, a few hundred meters from the shore.
Did you spot the error? If you did, you get a gold star for today. For those who can't find it yet, "is a small rock overhang hidden behind in foliage" is horrible phrasing. What this says, is that the cave was hidden in the foliage behind something. But, we are not given an answer to our question, "What was it hidden behind?" Seriously, the word "in" should have been left out of this sentence, which then would have made sense: "is a small rock overhang hidden behind foliage," It's simple little errors like this which will make your writing appear haphazard at best, and unprofessional at worst. And honestly, that's not the only error going on in this sentence. The writer obviously didn't listen when sentence structure was discussed in class. This is how I would have written it:
Jerimalai Cave, where the discoveries were made, is a small rock overhang hidden behind foliage, just a few hundred meters from shore.
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