Roll

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There's been so much chatter about the journalistic standards (or lack thereof) displayed by bloggers, methinks the traditional media is getting a free ride. Check out this headline on the cover of the Sports section in Thursday's Chicago Tribune -- "Favre matures into roll model." Now, I read the entire story and there is no "roll" pun in play here. Just shoddy editing. Whoever had a roll in this being published should be ashamed.

Fulcrum

Almost forgot I had promised my colleague, Jeff Campbell, that I'd use this as the inagural entry on this blog. Sorry JC, hope you'll settle for #5. Love this word. Per Webster, it means "the support about which a lever turns" or "one that supplies capability for action." Jeff was using it to discuss paid search optimization but it has myriad (ooh, that's another Good Word) applications and can make any POV sound fancy.

Reminds me of the book Fancy Nancy that I read to my 8-month old daughter Eliara every night in the hopes that she'll grow up to be a word wizard herself.

There

The misuse of "there" for "their" always bugs me. And doubly so here as I hate when people refer to themselves in 3rd person. It's no wonder there store went out of business.

Guaranty

Why on Earth would a bank want to brand itself with a misspelling? Especially one so closely tied to its value prop -- guranteeing the safety of your deposits?!? I want my money back.

Sustanied

Unfortunately, online journalists (and editors) are held to a lower standard than their offline counterparts. You can thank us bloggers for that. Here the proofer for CNN.com failed to catch this errant spelling of "sustained." We'll see if their job is sustained after this one.

Chedda

What betta word to start off this blog with? Of course, the ebonics version of "cheddar" is probably not what the Great Bagel Company had in mind when posting this sign for their soup of the day. I like this word's versatility -- can mean cheese or cash. Regardless of intent, though, it will always make me think of Cheddar Bob in 8 Mile.