Well, it looks like it’s an epidemic of homophonic errors over at Yahoo! Style. In a single article, the “news editor” took the reins, writing this gaffe:
and followed up with the hoards of people:
People are not hoards, but they may be hoarders. Large groups of people are hordes.
Those wacky Yahoo! Style staffers are at it again. This time they demonstrate that mistakes reign when writing about a 75-year-old (it requires two hyphens):
Maybe next time they’ll hand the reins over to someone who understands English.
Some editor should take the reins over at Yahoo! Style, where homophonic mistakes reign:
In the same article, another caption came bearing yet another assault on the language:
Unless Ms. Perry was unwrapping the gifts for Ms. Clinton, the correct word is bearing.
Maxim is a magazine. The writer for Yahoo! Style seems to have forgotten that. She thinks Maxim (when it’s in italics) is the company that publishes the magazine and that you can refer to a company by a plural pronoun. She’s wrong on both counts:
She needs an editor to take the reins and correct her word usage. An editor who’ll remove coverups from a list of swimsuits since it’s not an actual swimsuit. An editor who’ll remove a galloping case of redundancy and who’ll make sense of this final sentence:
The authorities in charge of Yahoo! Makers should be careful about giving this writer free rein:
She needs the help of a competent editor — one who knows that a king may reign freely, but this writer shouldn’t have free rein.
When will the writers for Yahoo! Makers rein in their errors? When will they learn the difference between rein (which means to control or restrain) and reign (which is what a monarch does)?
Everyone makes mistakes. Even the best writers. And no writer working on a site as widely read as Yahoo! Makers should be given free rein to write without the benefit of an editor.
Giving writers free rein means that they can work unrestrained; giving them free reign means that they can rule the world without charge.
Someone needs to take over the editorial reins of Yahoo! Style and teach those young’uns the difference between reign (which means “to exercise power” or “to be predominant”) and reins (“a means of restraining or directing”):
A king and queen reign in a monarchy. Competent editors rein in writers gone wild. That’s what the Yahoo! front page needs — an editor who isn’t confused by homophones:
Time to rein in this writer for Yahoo! Homes:
You don’t want to give free rein to a writer who doesn’t know this common idiom.
Terribly Write 