Susan Boyle album sets pre-order record on Amazon

Amazon said that Boyle’s album was not only the top CD pre-order in the United States, but also the biggest around the world in the 14-year history of it’s web site.

Obama in Asia - building block or bow?

“The United States is a big power that became used to having it’s way,” said Liu Jiangyong, a professor of East Asian security affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Please tell whoever is responsible that “history of it’s website” should not have an apostrophe .. If Reuters gets such a basic thing wrong then we are all in trouble !!!

Mackenzie

Would you please inform your writers and editors that the possessive form of the word “it” does not have an apostrophe? It’s with an apostrophe means “it is”.

P.J.R.

I have never bothered to write any news organization about anything, but seeing such an amateur grammar mistake by what I have considered to be a a solid source of news and analysis for many years was too much. This is truly sad.

English is my third language and I still cringe at this kind of mistake.

Vlad G.

Sigh. This mistake, which we make way too often, drives readers crazy: GBU Editor

Celtic supporter Susan Boyle waves to the crowd at half time during their Europa League soccer match against Hamburger FC at Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, October 22, 2009. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Kidnapped Irish priest freed in Philippines

MANILA (Reuters) – An Irish priest kidnapped in the southern Philippines a month ago was freed unharmed on Thursday, a senior church official and members of a Muslim rebel group said.

They said Michael Sinnott, a 78-year-old Columban priest who was snatched from the garden of a church on Oct 11, was handed over to police and government officials in the city of Zamboanga in the southern region of Mindanao shortly before dawn.

This is faulty editing. This article discusses the release of a priest held captive by rebels. However, the article claims the priest was “Columban.”

This means that the priest is from Columbus, Ohio? If he is from the South American country the word should be spelled Colombian.

M.M.

I believe the priest in question is neither from Columbus, Ohio, nor from the South American country of Colombia. As our lede said, he is Irish.

He is also from the Missionary Society of Saint Columban, and is therefore a Columban priest: GBU Editor

Irish priest Michael Sinnott speaks to the media upon his arrival at the Villamor air base in Manila, November 12, 2009. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Clinton wishes he had left White House “in a coffin”

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Monday he would have preferred to leave the White House in a coffin because he loved being commander in chief, but signaled his political life was over.

“It’s good that we have a (term) limit. Otherwise I would have stayed until I was carried away in a coffin. Or defeated in an election,” Clinton said at a conference in Istanbul. “I loved doing the job.”

Clinton won two terms in office, the maximum under the constitution, and served from 1992 to 2000.

Your story contains a rather obvious factual error, that he served in office 1992-2000. He was elected in 1992, and took office in January 1993, as you undoubtedly know.

Whether you want to put the end date as up until the inauguration in 2001 or to call it 2000 is probably a judgment call, but I don’t think there should be any question about citing 1993 as the beginning of his presidency.

Get it Right

Clinton saying:”It’s good that we have a (term) limit. Otherwise I would have stayed until I was carried away in a coffin. Or defeated in an election,” is NOT the same as saying: Clinton wishes he had left White House “in a coffin”

That’s a ghoulish way to interpret that.

Amazed

We corrected the dates to 1993-2001.

Several readers also felt our headline was too much of a stretch, given the facts in the story. They have a fair point: GBU Editor

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton listens before giving a lecture in the Andalusian capital of Seville November 5, 2009. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Rihanna describes night of attack by Chris Brown

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - R&B singer Rihanna broke her silence on Friday about the night her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown attacked her, saying he had bitten her, put her in a headlock and left her bleeding and swollen.

Her screams prompted a bypasser to call the police.

The little things distinguish good writing from mediocre. In this article, the writer refers to a person assisiting Rihanna as “a bypasser.” I’m guessing that word is not even in the writer’s Spell Check!

It is not a big jump from passer-by to bypasser, I admit, but it makes reading difficult when you stumble on a made up word.

Christopher F.

We should not be in the business of making up words and shouldn’t have used this one: GBU Editor

Singer Rihanna poses for photographers as she arrives at the British premiere of “Inglourious Basterds” at Leicester Square in London July 23, 2009. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

U.N. agency hunts for microscopic nuclear clues

SEIBERSDORF, Austria (Reuters) - A hotchpotch set of grey and white buildings huddled in fields outside Vienna may seem an unlikely setting for a laboratory which could help uncover illicit nuclear activity.

Please tell your writer it’s “hodgepodge” not “hotchpotch”

R.W.

Actually, it can be either, although hodgepodge is more common here in the United States: GBU Editor

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson listens to a question from the audience as he speaks at the Treasury Department in Washington March 31, 2008. Paulson revealed sweeping new plans on Monday for streamlining a hodgepodge of regulation faulted for permitting the U.S. mortgage crisis to balloon into a full-blown economic threat. REUTERS/Jason Reed

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Thousands line up for last Big Mac in Iceland

In a nearby stationary store, Thora Sigurdardottir, a 35-year old nursing assistant, said she had no intention of going for a final McDonald’s meal.

In your article “Thousands line up for last Big Mac in Iceland,” the word should be “stationery” not “stationary,” unless it is important that the store remains still?

S.Z.

You’re right, of course: GBU Editor

A McDonald’s in Arlington, Va. REUTERS/Jim Young

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Members of the protest group Code Pink taunt local school children with chants about the war in Afghanistan as the children and their families arrive for a Halloween reception by U.S. President Barack Obama and his family at the White House in Washington, October 31, 2009. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst   

I must strongly protest your caption on the photo of protesters outside the White House. Using the verb “taunt” with “local school children” as its object is inaccurate, pejorative and unwarranted.

Who is paying you to run such captions?

L.S.

Nobody is paying us to “run such captions.” Our photographer says the protesters said things to challenge and confront the children and their parents. For example, one protester dressed as a Wicked Witch was saying things like, “More pretties to die in my war! More pretties!”

He said they were not just protesting the war in general but were, in effect, telling these families that their children were going to die at war. That sounds pretty much like taunting to me: GBU Editor

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

The secret Paulson-Goldman meeting

For f**k’s sake! Wilkinson thought. He and Treasury had had enough trouble trying to fend off all the Goldman Sachs conspiracy theories constantly being bandied about in Washington and on Wall Street. A private meeting with its board? In Moscow?

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/10/20/the-secret-paulson-goldman-meeting/

Excuse me, but that little four letter ‘f’ word just happen to sneak into the article, and I’m offended. Need I say more?  Please advise the article’s writer to stop quoting offensive words.

Stephan

This was posted in a blog on your Website. I’m not really sure if that was supposed to be there. If it is, then no problem, but it doesn’t seem a comment I would normally read off a news Website. Just wondering.

Pana

We don’t make a practice of using that word, as you can see from my version of the passage above. Our blogger, a member of our commentary team, was quoting from a book, and the decision was made to leave the word in, uncensored. I only saw one reader complaint on it: GBU Editor

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testifies before a House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 16, 2009. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Darfur kidnap victims endured mock assassinations

KHARTOUM, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Two Darfur aid workers held captive on a harsh mountaintop on the remote Sudan-Chad border for 107 days said they felt anger at mock assassinations by their captors but clung to the hope they would be released.

One shocking howler in your story is your reporter’s repeated use of the term ‘mock assassinations’ when she actually means ‘mock executions’.

A mock assassination would be quite elaborate i imagine, possibly involving hired armored cars, fake explosive charges, by-the-hour-snipers and a nefarious foreign secret service that was only kidding.

Boris

Our story used the same word the aid workers used in the interview. As it wasn’t in a direct quote, however, mock executions would have been more appropriate in the context: GBU Editor

Released Ugandan hostage Hilda Kawuki (R) is welcomed by an unidentified official on arrival at Khartoum airport, October 19, 2009. Two kidnapped aid workers Kawuki and Sharon Commins (L) from Irish Goal aid agency will return home on Monday after a three-month ordeal in Sudan’s Darfur region, saying they could not wait to see their families. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallh

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network

Microsoft releases biggest patch on record

It said six of the patches were high priority and should be deployed immediately. The patches — which update software to write over glitches — are designed to protect users from hackers or malicious software downloaded from the Internet.

The word you are looking for is “crackers” NOT “hackers”. There is a huge difference, and it is quite offensive to use the incorrect term.

Please modify your article to reflect the correct usage, and any articles that you may publish in the future.

Man in Scary Mask

As someone who loves words, I’m unhappy when they get hijacked and given a new meaning for no good reason. However, I’m afraid trying to preserve the original meaning of hacker is just a lost cause.

To quote the Associated Press Stylebook, which is recognized by most U.S. media: “In common usage, the word has evolved to mean one who uses computer skills to unlawfully penetrate proprietary computer systems.” GBU Editor

A participant of the “Chaos Communication Camp - The International Hacker Meeting 2007″, sits with a laptop at a hangar of a former Soviet airfield in Finowfurt north of Berlin, August 8, 2007. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

Join the Good, Bad, Ugly Facebook Blog Network