Tag: grammar

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Furious Spain Flood Survivors Hurl Mud At King, Queen And Top Government Officials.

I had read the above Huffington Post headline three or four times before I realized it was just bad grammar. It should read Furious Spanish Flood Survivors. The first couple of reads, I thought why is Spain flooding survivors and hurling mud at the King and Queen. Now you may claim I am being nit picky here but this seems really basic here. Spain is a noun which is doing something while Spanish is an adjective describing the survivors.

It is confusing and makes for difficult reading.

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I don’t want to bring any more controversy to the abortion debate but I have seen the term medication abortions numerous times in the past week. If I had only seen it once, I would have chalked it up to author error but repeated use of the same term leads me to believe that the accepted term for an abortion brought about by pills is medication abortions. Here are additional example of this phrase here and here. This seems grammatically incorrect. Why is it called medication abortions instead of medicated abortions?

Medicated is an adjective that explains the abortion process the author is talking about. Since abortion is the subject and not medication, medicated abortion is the appropriate expression for the process. Joining medication and abortion doesn’t change the meaning and the term grates on my ears. What is the point? I am baffled. Or am I missing something?