Pedantry redux: I eagerly await my first sighting of the word “tort” on a menu, meant to describe a rich cake. Conversely, maybe I’ll see the word “torte” on the business pages of a newspaper, meant to describe “a wrongful act that results in injury to another’s person, property, reputation, or the like, and for which the injured party is entitled to compensation.”
Previous adventures in homophone fail here.
I saw one today in a new blog on local police affairs. The blogger posted this:
“The Alameda County District Attorney announced charges against a woman who?s boyfriend is accused of killing a Google job applicant from Virginia.”
The blogger thought I was harsh when I suggested that this usage made her look “illiterate.” I was merely suggesting that she would be taken more seriously if she didn’t look illiterate.
Maybe you should say “When you write a contraction, expand it. Then see if it makes sense.” In this case, “woman who is boyfriend”