We think we know what these words mean. We almost know what they mean. But we don’t, not quite. Instead, we mix them up in our minds with words that sound similar and have related meanings. Be wary! Make a list! Look them up — each time if necessary.

•••

But above all, in the view of many who have watched her up close, her record on Libya illustrates how, facing a national-security or foreign-policy quandary, she was inclined to act — in marked contrast to Mr. Obama’s more reticent approach.

“Reticent” means reserved in the sense of “hesitant to speak.” It’s often confused with “reluctant,” which may be what we meant here (“restrained” is another possibility).

•••

It was a reprisal of her offensive at Thursday night’s debate, but she escalated her assault further, portraying Mr. Sanders as an impediment to the health care law so associated with Mr. Obama that, she noted, it bears his name.

The word we wanted was not “reprisal,” which means retaliation, but “reprise,” which means a repeat.

•••

But others have backed Mr. Sanders’s proposal as the more strident one. In January, his campaign released a letter signed by 170 “economists and other experts” who felt his plan was superior.

“Strident” has a pejorative sense and means shrill or harsh. Here, proponents probably considered Sanders’s plan more “stringent” or “strict” or just “tough.”

•••

For decades, the N.F.L. refuted research by independent experts that connect brain trauma to long-term cognitive impairment.

“Refuted” means disproved; this was changed for print to the word we wanted, “rebutted.”

•••

The year was 1979. Although Sartre’s huge public funeral would not occur until the next year, his philosophy was already outré.

Forays into French are responsible for a wildly disproportionate share of errors in our prose. “Outré” means eccentric or bizarre. Whatever one thinks of existentialism, it’s clear from the context that what we meant here was something more like “passé” — or, resorting to English, “out of fashion.”

 
When Spell-Check Can’t Help

More homophone trouble from recent articles. Put these on your watch list.

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Writers and editors may debate whether a colloquial expression is effective, how well a metaphor works, or whether a complex sentence is elegant or just impenetrable.

But we should all be able to agree that singular subjects need singular verbs and plural subjects need plural verbs.

Upholding that rule on deadline, however, continues to be a challenge. And the result is often sloppy, ungrammatical writing that leaves readers annoyed or appalled. Here is the latest sampling of singular/plural tribulations (thanks to colleagues and readers for many examples):

•••

The push by Mr. Xi’s to assert state control over the markets and the economy go against the philosophy of China’s early reformers under Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader who sought to give more space to the market.

As frequently happens, the phrase between the subject and verb threw us off. Most often, as here, a singular subject is followed by a plural noun, and we are misled into using a plural verb. Make it “the push … goes.” (Also, there’s no need for the possessive “Xi’s.”)

•••

That may still be the case, but the success of small endowments like Southern Virginia’s suggest that they can outperform even their largest and most prestigious rivals by sticking to lower-cost strategies.

Same problem. The subject is “success,” not “endowments,” so make it “the success … suggests.”

•••

Mr. Hayden took over the C.I.A. after authorization of coercive interrogation tactics were withdrawn, but he remains a defender.

And again. The subject is the singular “authorization,” not the plural “tactics.”

•••

The development of the two secret programs suggest how seriously the Obama administration was concerned that its negotiations with Iran could fail.

And again. The subject is “the development,” so make the verb “suggests.”

•••

Her criticism of “medieval” punishments in Saudi Arabia and of Israeli violence against Palestinians have led to diplomatic breaches — and have prompted Ms. Wallstrom to be compared to Mr. Palme.

And yet again! Despite the intervening phrases, the subject is “criticism,” so make it “has led” and “has prompted.”

•••

Meen is not one of those judges who drags out his decision as if he were telling a mystery story.

Read more...

This week’s extra-large grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps from recent articles, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.

•••

A former House member who served as trade representative and budget director under President George W. Bush, his efforts at bipartisanship help him at home.

This appositive phrase is a dangler. It should be in apposition with “he,” not with “his efforts.”

•••

And in 2002, the Army granted the WASPs military funeral honors — the playing of Taps, a rifle salute and an American flag to the family — and affirmed that they were eligible for inurnment at Arlington.

The Times’s stylebook says this:

taps, the name of the bugle call, is lowercase and takes no quotation marks. It is construed as a singular.

•••

President Obama promised to nominate a successor before the evening was over, saying he expects a timely Senate vote.

Watch where you put that phrase! This was fixed for print: “Before the evening was over, President Obama promised …”

•••

His policy director, Warren Gunnels, dismissed the critics in an interview, saying, “They’ve picked sides with Hillary Clinton.” The campaign has a list of 130 endorsees, including some economists.

People who are doing the endorsing are “endorsers.”

•••

[Opinion] That we can try and answer such questions by building devices like LIGO to peer out into the cosmos stands as a testament to the persistent curiosity and ingenuity of humankind — the qualities that we should most celebrate about being human.

This is colloquial; make it “try to answer.”

•••

2 Businesses Reopen, but Tenants Upstairs Remain Without Gas

The story noted that the apartment in question was rent-controlled, but never answered the question every New Yorker would ask: What is the rent?

•••

When Jeb Bush formally entered the presidential campaign in June, there was already more money behind him than every other Republican candidate combined.

Make it “all the other Republican candidates combined.”

•••

While the Justice Department sees the San Bernardino incident as its ideal test case, Apple is hoping for a legal win in Brooklyn.

“Incident” seems odd here. The stylebook says this:

Read more...

Here’s a short break from carping, and another sampling of sparkling prose from recent Times stories.

•••

Business Day, 2/4:

Playboy Puts On (Some) Clothes for Newly Redesigned Issue

Paradoxical as it may sound, Playboy has undergone major cosmetic surgery and emerged from the operating room looking more natural. …

In short, the new Playboy, which will appear on newsstands as early as this weekend, has ditched its jauntily illicit aura and become a slightly saucier version of a lot of other magazines, like Esquire and GQ. But the March issue retains elements of the original DNA, including a lengthy interview (with the MSNBC host Rachel Maddow) and a long essay by a famous writer (the Norwegian memoirist and awkward-moment connoisseur Karl Ove Knausgaard).

David Segal’s description of the revamped Playboy was full of lively touches, none more memorable than the description of Knausgaard.

•••

Sports, 2/1:

What’s a Catch? In the N.F.L., the Rule Seems Impossible to Grasp

The N.F.L. did not change the rule last off-season but tried to clarify it, in a way that wipers clarify a windshield covered in mud by smearing the mess from side to side.

John Branch’s image is perfectly clear, even if the N.F.L. rule on receptions is anything but.

•••

Times Insider, 1/14:

Inside the Armed Standoff in Oregon: Reporter’s Notebook

During the five days I spent in Oregon reporting on what is definitely the wild westiest story I have ever covered, I traveled back and forth between the refuge and the tiny city of Burns, where reporters, state police, federal investigators and a motley crew of armed outsiders with shifting alliances have taken over the community’s few hotels and other establishments. Here, they mix awkwardly with locals at places like the Elkhorn Club & Linda’s Thai Room cafe and Central Pastime bar. …

The protest in Malheur has drawn people from around the country, who have come to the refuge, and to Burns, with their own ideas and weapons. Being on the site feels like attending an improv show inside a powder keg.

Times Insider posts can offer vivid behind-the-scenes pictures, as in this account by Julie Turkewitz. (A style quibble: I would uppercase the delightful coinage Wild Westiest.)

Read more...

[PLEASE NOTE: After Deadline will be on vacation next week, returning on Tuesday, Feb. 23.]

Matching singular with singular and plural with plural doesn’t seem very tricky. But there are certain constructions that often lead us astray when it comes to subject-verb or pronoun-antecedent agreement. Here are the latest examples:

•••

His family was evicted from their apartment after problems with the city’s rent subsidy program, said Sametha White, Mr. White’s mother, ending up at a homeless shelter in the Bronx.

Some terms like “family” can be construed as either singular or plural. But it’s awkward and jarring to switch from one to the other in the same sentence. Here, we used “family” as a singular subject (with the verb “was”) but then used the plural pronoun “their.” It’s probably best in this case to stick to singular and say “its apartment.”

•••

The romance takes place abroad; the pair splits up when they return home, to Israel and the West Bank.

Here, we should use plural throughout, as we would with “couple” in this sort of construction: “the pair split up when they return …”

•••

But everything, from the pithy recurring phrases to the thoughtfully placed pauses and seemingly folksy anecdotes, are actually well-planned-out, crowd-tested presentations.

The long intervening phrase threw us off track. But “everything” is singular and needs a singular verb. The following predicate noun should probably be singular as well: “everything … is a well-planned-out, crowd-tested presentation.” Or recast the sentence.

•••

The stridency of Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz hold little appeal to many of these Republicans.

There are two people in the prepositional phrase, but the subject is the singular “stridency.” Make it “stridency … holds little appeal.”

•••

An intensified military campaign would probably require ground troops, something that neither President Obama nor Mr. Cruz support.

A very frequent error. This neither/nor construction creates a singular subject; make it “neither President Obama nor Mr. Cruz supports.”

•••

One of the few attackers who is not shown executing a captive is Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who appears in a room with the ISIS flag.

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Too often we use a word that sounds sort of like what we probably mean, more or less. That’s not the level of precision we’re striving for. If you’re not absolutely sure you’ve got the right word, you probably don’t. Look it up!

A few recent misfires:

•••

A Reuters article on Tuesday shed new light on the Pentagon’s obstinance on Guantánamo and the extent to which the department has sought to keep detainees locked away for years without due process in a prison established to sidestep the Constitution and international law.

This isn’t a word. A good clue is the fact that the adjective is “obstinate,” not “obstinant.” The noun is “obstinacy” or, less often, “obstinateness.”

•••

[Opinion] Trump seems to feel absolutely no compunction to explain how anything would work.

“Compunction” means a feeling of guilt or regret. Certainly one might say Trump feels no compunction about some of the controversial things he has said or done. But here we meant something more like “compulsion,” or, better, “obligation.”

•••

But her own children said it was her role as mother that she seemed to covet most.

As a colleague pointed out, “covet” means to long for something you don’t have, or that belongs to someone else. That’s not the case here. We meant something more like “value” or perhaps “cherish.”

•••

It is difficult to understate how big Saudi Aramco is believed to be. Its stated oil reserves amount to 261 billion barrels, more than 10 times those of Exxon Mobil. It supplies roughly a tenth of the world’s oil.

This common error is more a misunderstanding of the idiom than of the word itself. We should say “difficult to overstate” — that is, Saudi Aramco is so large that it would be hard to exaggerate its size.

•••

Film aficionados tend to find the fact-checking of movies a feckless exercise.

This may be a closer call. But the context suggests we meant something more like “pointless,” rather than “feckless,” which can mean either weak or careless.

 
When Spell-Check Can’t Help

A couple of familiar, and painful, homonym mix-ups from recent stories:

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Here’s another sampling of overstuffed or impenetrable sentences in recent stories. As we’ve noted often, such passages are an unnecessary burden for hurried readers, and often lead to grammatical trouble.

Some tangled passages seem like a parody version of Times writing — replete with subordinate clauses, background asides and “at a time when” mannerisms.

Done well, a traditional, somewhat formal style can convey authority and rigor in news writing. Done badly, it is likely to seem opaque and off-putting, especially to new and younger readers accustomed to a more direct or conversational approach.

We don’t want our prose dumbed down. We do want it clear, rapid and readable.

•••

The announcement came on Tuesday after a series of private meetings spread over 12 hours here among some of the biggest titans of industry, including Robert A. Iger, the chairman of Disney; Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder and now owner of the Seattle Seahawks; and E. Stanley Kroenke, the owner of the Rams, whose fortune derives in part from the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, hashed out the move that had eluded the league for two decades.

It’s theoretically possible to follow a grammatical thread through this 77-word tangle (hint: “meetings” seems to be the subject of “hashed out”), but it’s not easy. And if you’re reading on a phone, that one sentence seems to take up practically the whole screen. Break it up! It would be simple and far more natural, for example, to put the names and descriptions in a separate sentence.

•••

In echoes of the scandal in Cologne, Germany, where the police are investigating scores of assaults, often involving asylum seekers, on New Year’s Eve, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported over the weekend that a gang of migrant youths had groped young girls at a festival in August.

The attacks in Cologne have intensified the scrutiny of the assaults in Sweden, and even as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said there was no excuse for revenge attacks against immigrants, a group of Pakistanis and a Syrian were targeted in Cologne on Sunday, The Associated Press reported.

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It may seem churlish to speak ill of strangers. And I’m sympathetic to reporters’ efforts to humanize their news stories with vivid examples and memorable characters.

But as we’ve often noted, an overreliance on anecdotal openings — especially the classic “stranger in the lead” approach — can make our prose feel shopworn rather than vivid. This is particularly true when readers encounter unfamiliar names at the top of two or more adjacent stories, whether in print or online.

Here are a few recent juxtapositions on Page One in print. Each lead by itself might be justifiable — some even memorable — but when we use the device over and over, all the examples seem a bit wan.

•••

1/11:

• DENVER — Ken Ivory, a Republican state representative from Utah, has been roaming the West with an alluring pitch to cattle ranchers, farmers and conservatives upset with how Washington controls the wide-open public spaces out here: This land is your land, he says, and not the federal government’s.

• DES MOINES — On Sunday, Pastor Bradley Cranston stood at his pulpit in Burlington, Iowa, and, citing Exodus 18:21 (“select out of all the people able men who fear God … as leaders”), endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, urging his parishioners to also consider voting for him.

•••

1/9:

• FRESNO, Calif. — Harlan Elrich is a high school teacher in California, and that means he must pay about $970 a year to a labor union. He teaches math, and he said the system did not add up.

• CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Scott Schneidermann, one of Senator Marco Rubio’s supporters from northwest Iowa, saw all the hallmarks of a campaign on the upswing: a rapt audience of 200, nowhere left to sit, a crush of out-of-town reporters.

•••

12/23 (courtesy of a keen-eyed reader):

• Clifford Cain Jr., a retired electrician in Baltimore, was used to living on a tight budget, carefully apportioning his Social Security and pension benefits to cover his rent and medication for multiple sclerosis.

• Fred Kellerman, a retired car salesman from Los Angeles, was bedridden with a rare neuromuscular disease when he started taking a drug in the 1990s at Duke University in North Carolina. It changed his life.

Read more...

Here’s a sobering start to the new year: an extra long rundown of gaffes and missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and our ever-vigilant readers.

•••

If Mr. Trump’s team had researched Mr. Cruz’s weaknesses, for example, then incorporated them in Mr. Trump’s heavily covered speeches and ceaseless television appearances, as well as in paid advertising, he may have been able to pre-empt or at least slow the senator’s rise there.

Use “might” in this contrary-to-fact construction.

•••

It could be the case, they said, that the paper’s management or Mr. Adelson’s aides had been acting pre-emptively to satisfy what they thought Mr. Adelson, known to be a demanding and exacting man, may have wanted.

We also needed “might” for the past tense here. Better still, pare down and simplify this awkward sentence.

•••

There was a Playmobil pirate the size of a third grader, and a Barbie dollhouse that could accommodate a couple dozen grown-ups.

As The Times’s stylebook says, this should be “couple of dozen.”

•••

A big part of the problem is that the veterans of the unit, like hundreds of thousands of other young veterans, fall between the cracks of the two enormous institutions.

This is an illogical variant of the idiom “fall through the cracks.”

•••

ISTANBUL — Turkey issued a statement on Friday saying that comments by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — in which he cited Hitler in response to a question about whether a strong presidency was possible in Turkey — had been misinterpreted.

The whole point of the story is that Erdogan cited Hitler. So it doesn’t make sense in the lead sentence to set off that element with dashes, which suggest that the information could be removed while leaving the main thought intact.

•••

It is one of the few restaurants formerly frequented by foreigners that is still open in Kabul.

A familiar refrain: Make it “few restaurants … that are still open.”

•••

One of the janitors who maintains the toilet complex, Zhang Min, 35, said the new facility was a great improvement over the old one, which was known for its fetid smells in summer.

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For this week’s roundup of grammar, style and other editing missteps, we bring you the latest After Deadline Quiz. Try to identify at least one problem in each of the following passages; answers and explanations are below.

Thanks to colleagues and readers for contributions.

•••

1. Those price increases combined with Mr. Shkreli’s jeering response to his critics has made him a lightning rod for public outrage and fodder for the presidential campaign.

•••

2. The gravelly voiced party leader, perpetually sucking on an electronic cigarette, appears to both revel in that status and to be embittered by it. And since she represents the “courageous and determined patriots,” defeat is never her party’s fault. Nevermind the big turnout Sunday — jumping by more than eight percentage points between the first and second rounds, suggesting an electorate mobilized to beat her — and the lopsided rejection.

•••

3. On Friday, Mr. Weaver accused the party committee of stacking the scales to help Mrs. Clinton, claiming that the Sanders campaign was being unfairly penalized for the data breach. At a news conference, Mr. Weaver insisted that the campaign had dealt with the situation by firing its national data director.

•••

4. Then a shout rang out, and Mr. Schickele would materialize in a box or balcony, hopelessly disheveled in formal dress and work boots. He would clamber over the rail, shimmy down a rope to orchestra level and mount the stage, and the show was on.

•••

5. Arguments over gun control may boil in some quarters. But here, canoers, bird-watchers and even the dogs paid little heed to the distant crackle of gunfire.

•••

6. The small changes, and the enormous windfall they generated, show the power of connected corporate lobbyists to alter a huge bill that is being put together with little time for lawmakers to consider. Throughout the legislation, there were thousands of other add-ons and hard to decipher tax changes.

•••

7. As a schoolboy in this Nile Delta rice-farming village, his class marched to the local clinic every month for injections against schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease spread by water snails.

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[PLEASE NOTE: After Deadline will be on vacation next week, returning on Tuesday, Jan. 5.]

Several readers have lamented a tendency, in The Times and elsewhere, for writers to misuse so-called reflexive pronouns — the ones that end in “-self” or “-selves.”

A reflexive pronoun is called for when the subject and object (direct or indirect) in a clause are the same person. For example, in the sentence “She chided herself for the error,” the same person is the subject of “chided” and the object. Using a regular personal pronoun — “She chided her for the error” — would indicate that the object “her” refers to someone else, not to the subject.

Reflexive pronouns can also be used for emphasis: “He will do it himself.”

But writers sometimes use a reflexive pronoun where an ordinary personal pronoun is called for — perhaps in the mistaken view that the reflexive is more formal or correct. This often occurs in prepositional phrases such as “like himself.” If you’re not sure, mentally substitute the regular pronoun; if the meaning is clear and the expression sounds natural, then no reflexive is called for.

It’s a small point, but careful readers detect a lack of polish when we get this wrong. Here are a number of recent cases where reflexive pronouns were used incorrectly, all involving “like” phrases:

•••

Ms. Syz says her clients, primarily in Europe and the United States, many of whom are art collectors like herself, find traditional jewelry too staid and appreciate her mix of haute and tongue-in-cheek style.

“Herself” is not referring to the subject of the clause (“many”); there’s no need for a reflexive pronoun here. Just say “many of whom are art collectors like her.”

•••

Rayyane Tabet said he loved how the show juxtaposed Lebanese artists like himself with international artists rather than confining them to the category of “art from the Arab world.”

Again, there’s nothing “reflexive” about this construction. Just say “Lebanese artists like him.”

•••

The title piece of this collection is a spry but elegiac mediation on age and loss and the pileup of memories, and this entire volume has a faintly valedictory air to it, as Mr. Angell notes the “bulging directory” of dead relatives, neighbors, classmates and office sidekicks that “elders” like himself accumulate.

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Long, complicated sentences can be off-putting to hurried readers, especially those reading on small screens. Of course we want to convey complex ideas, with layers of nuance, background and qualification — but we don’t have to do it all in a single sentence. What’s more, overstuffed sentences are far more likely to run off the grammatical rails.

A few recent examples that could have been pared down or broken up:

•••

WASHINGTON — The investigation into corruption and bribery in soccer that in May rocked FIFA, the sport’s multibillion-dollar governing body, metastasized on Thursday when United States officials unsealed a new indictment that alleged an even more extensive network of criminal behavior across dozens of countries and that involved some of the most powerful people in international soccer.

We tried to stuff everything into this 57-word lead: the big picture, the spot news, background, multiple time frames. The result is very hard to read.

•••

Reports in the Chinese news media about his “Project Dust” have coincided with the worst smog in more than a year across northern China, and Brother Nut — Jianguo Xiongdi in Mandarin Chinese, as he insists on calling himself — has catapulted to instant fame in this city, where people talk about ups and downs in PM2.5 air pollution with the same familiarity that the English reputedly discuss rainfall.

Too long and winding at 70 words. One simple improvement would be to move the parenthetical Mandarin translation somewhere else. The syntax eventually falls apart — “with the same familiarity that the English discuss …” doesn’t track.

•••

Responding to concerns that a plan to redraw two Brooklyn school zones would fill an elementary school with affluent white children that currently serves mostly low-income minority children, Education Department staff members said on Monday that students receiving free or reduced-price lunches would be given admissions priority for half the seats in each class at the school.

This 57-word lead is almost impossible to digest. Among other problems, the subordinate clause “that currently serves …” is severed from “school,” which it describes. Remember, there’s no rule that the news development and the context have to be jammed together in a single sentence.

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As I’ve noted before, usage experts debate how ruthlessly the grammar police should enforce traditional rules against “dangling modifiers” — modifying phrases, often at the beginning of a sentence, that aren’t directly adjacent to the word being modified.

While some are harmless and idiomatic, danglers often produce a slipshod effect and can impede reading. They are usually easy to fix, so it’s generally best to fix them.

Here are several from recent days that we should have fixed.

•••

After spending $600,000 to acquire the Biel property, expensive emergency repairs had to be made to replace the leaky roof, repoint the 300-year-old stone walls and seal the windows and doors with plywood, a protection against the weather, and local teenagers.

Who spent $600,000? Not the emergency repairs. The parks department is mentioned in the previous sentence, so an easy fix would be “After it spent $600,000 …”

•••

His family said it hoped that in publicizing the diagnosis, more attention would be paid to medical research linking football and traumatic brain injuries.

The participle “publicizing” would normally apply to what follows (“more attention”) not to what came before (“it”), as we intended. Rephrase — perhaps by converting the participle, which acts as an adjective, to a gerund, which works as a noun: “His family said it hoped that publicizing the diagnosis would bring more attention to …”

•••

A former French ambassador to Israel, Mr. Araud’s tenure in Washington has been punctuated by tragedy.

This is a common sort of dangler, involving an appositive phrase. The meaning is clear, but the phrasing is clumsy and inelegant. “Mr. Araud,” not “Mr. Araud’s tenure,” should be in apposition with “ambassador.”

•••

Last May, days after winning the Miss Canada contest in Vancouver, she says security agents visited her father, who remains in China, and urged him to rein in his daughter’s talk about human rights.

Here the dangler is just part of the problem. She didn’t say this “days after winning,” so that attribution should be set off with commas. But once you do that, the participle “winning” seems to apply grammatically to “security agents.” One fix: “Last May, she says, days after she won the Miss Canada contest in Vancouver, security agents visited …”

Read more...

This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.

•••

The decision to turn down the advertisement was taken by Digital Cinema Media, a company that says it handles 80 percent of advertising in British movie theaters.

Our readership is global. But our English — when we’re forced to choose — should be American. Even when writing about Britain, we should say decisions are “made,” not “taken.”

•••

Other attributes like housekeeping and free Wi-Fi, he said, might convince some renters to pay more for less room.

The Times’s stylebook says this:

convince, persuade. Convince should be followed by an of phrase or a that clause: She convinced the teacher of her ability; She convinced her sister that it was too late. But convince cannot be followed by a to phrase; in such a case, persuade is required: He persuaded his sister to take the day off. (Persuade is more versatile than convince, and can be followed by any of the three constructions.)

•••

Michael A. Fitts, the president of Tulane, said that Mr. Gold had completed his undergraduate studies at the university and that his parents and his sister were also alumna.

This is the feminine singular form. “Alumni” is normal for a plural group of mixed gender, but “graduates” would avoid the Latin challenges altogether.

•••

According to Dr. Hurtado’s calculations, 97 percent of Christian biblical texts that survive from the first three centuries A.D., including those from the Old Testament, are codexes.

More trouble with Latin plurals. Make it “codices.”

•••

[Web summary] Mrs. Mailer, the second wife of the novelist Mr. Mailer, was seriously injured in 1960 when her husband stabbed her during a party. She was 90.

The phrasing makes it seem as though she was partying hard at age 90.

•••

All the same, Mr. Ronneberg’s raid slowed the Nazi’s pursuit of a bomb rather than delivering a knockout blow.

Make it “the Nazis’ pursuit,” of course.

•••

She noted that the 50 special operations soldiers Mr. Obama authorized to be sent to Syria had not arrived yet, and said they should be deployed “immediately” and that the United States should be “prepared to deploy more, as more Syrians get into the fight.”

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