All in a "Daisies" work

Drew from Back of the Cereal Box wrote a great article about names in the TV show "Pushing Daisies." As with any writing of this length, Drew's article does contain a few mistakes.

After discussing the doubling in names of characters, Drew goes on to say:
The episode “Pigeon” features a different sort of doubling Elsa and her daughter Elsita, both of whom are played by the same actress, the very appealing Jayma Mays, who’s now on Glee and whose own name features an internal duplication of vowel sounds.
A colon would be required here, between stating the fact that doubling occurs and naming the specific instance.

He goes on to discuss a commanding character named Simone:
In that sense, I’m betting that that her creators has titular dictator of the game Simon Says in mind when they dreamed her up.
This is a case of simple subject-verb agreement, as the plural subject "creators" demands a plural verb, in this case "have." More specifically, the tense of the verb also comes into question. This is a past event, so we would need a past tense "had."

Source: http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2009/09/naming-conventions-in-pushing-daisies.html

This piece from Back of the Cereal Box, while comical, does bring home the concept of how profound a change simple punctuation can make. From the post:

My question was quickly answered by her response, “Who you are? Why you come here?”

Interestingly, the article itself contains punctuation errors:
Upon speaking with various members of the proofing department at length about the question mark erroneously affixed to the end of the film’s title on various posters, press packets, TV commercials, certain versions of the trailer, and all incarnations of the various Where the Wild Things Are video games. I eventually arrived at Ms. Anoldi’s office — which exists in a room that I previously thought was only used to store old furniture — and asked her if she was, in fact, the person who inserted this punctuation mark.

Did you see it? That fragment right there? Instead of a period, Drew obviously intended to continue the thought of the sentence, necessitating a comma.

Also of note, a spelling error:
She eventually chased me away by repeatedly rapping me on the head with a wooden spoon that she had been using to stir a pot of what appeared to be marina sauce.

Has anyone out there ever heard of this alleged "marina" sauce?

Source: http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2009/09/but-truly-where-are-these-wild-things.html

How many mistakes can you make in one article?

Going back in the grab bag, this one comes from CAD (Ctrl+Alt+Del), from about 2 months ago. Reading back through the article (a discussion of rumors about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion), there are quite a few things to mention.

First, the serial comma. There are a couple of times when Tim makes lists that aren't completely comma-separated. Example: Zones, quests and instances revamped. Standard grammar rules would require a comma before the 'and.' Additionally, Tim has the following list-within-a-list, also not fully comma-separated:

Orgrimmar split in half, Thousand Needles flooded, death damage and destruction everywhere you turn.

I may be wrong here, but I think semicolons are needed here in addition to commas. That is, the list-within-a-list would be comma-separated, while the outer list would be separated by semicolons ("Orgrimmar split in half; Thousand Needles flooded; death, damage, and destruction everywhere you turn.")

This assumes, though that death and damage are actually 2 separate list items and not an adjective describing the kind of damage (in which case, only a terminal comma would be needed, not the semicolons). Given the different kinds of damage in fantasy/role-playing games, this may actually be the case, though I don't believe so.

Further reading shows more errors. Here's an unpaired/unclosed quotation mark:
(not some "alternate reality zone, caverns of time horseshit)

Finally, what grammar gripe would be complete without the old standby of its/it's confusion:
Especially if it wants to stand it's ground against The Old Republic and all the hawtness that game is offering.

One might ask about the numerous sentence fragments, of which the examples above are but a few. However, Tim takes a conversational tone in his posting, not intending to be formal, so I'll leave them be.

Source: http://cad-comic.com/news.php?i=1918#1918

The download only game, developed by DICE, launched on July 8 for $15 and included a map and mode that had to be unlocked through the communal effort of everyone playing the game.

Compound adjectives like "download-only" should be hyphenated.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5321078/battlefield-1943-breaks-digital-records

How cliche can you get?

Here's another its/it's debacle:

While the source material and it's use in a game still doesn't sit well with me, the setting is rich, deep and, if you trust this video, being fully explored.

Also, the compound subject here is plural (source material and its use), requiring a plural verb.

Later, the article finishes with this sentence;

Now about those Doggy-Style enemy creatures.

While it is apparent that the author is trying to mimic speech patterns, this is not punctuated correctly. The correct punctuation for such a thought trailing off is the ellipsis.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5311428/dantes-inferno-lust-level-could-have-been-packed-with-sex

Insane in the membrane!

I hope you don't think I'm picking on Kotaku today. These are all older articles that I have, until now, been unable to write about. I'm just trying to catch up, honest!

In this article, Brian Crecente wrote about the upcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum game. A rather lengthy article, it contained quite a few errors. First, a simple typo:

Due out in August, the build I played was set to me in May to help me judge the game for an E3 Game Critics award.

Then, the dreaded run-on sentence, though in this case, only the period was omitted.

Every time you take out a bad guy a camp of bats appear and swirl around him for a second Initially it looks kind of neat, but the effect quickly loses its charm.

The English language is quite complex. Verb tenses tend to be among the most difficult part. Here, Crecente uses the simple past tense where a past participle is required:

These simple single-button attacks are all weaved together with a heavy reliance on timing and the ability to shift between targets by moving the thumbstick in different directions.

Again, dealing with verbs. In English, the use of the infinitive and the heper/modal verb 'like' requires the particle 'to.'

I'm not a huge fan of stealth, it's not my style and I don't like have it forced upon me.

And finally, we have one final small typo:

The game features voice work by Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, Tom Kane, and even Mark Hamil;l as The Joker.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5302101/batman-arkham-asylum-preview-a-thinkers-brawling-game