SO HOW DID I BECOME CHIEF OF THE LANGUAGE POLICE?
Honestly, folks, I am not as pedantic as I seem lately. I make a lot of typographical and grammatical errors, and I tend to look past those made by others. But when professionals are just sloppy, it annoys the hell out of me, and I can't keep my mouth shut.

In the past 24 hours, I've stumbled across three things that made me crazy:

First was 365gay.com's misuse of the word 'turf;'

Next came the mangled, repetitive, and completely unedited jumble of paragraphs at Advocate.com;

And now the Associated Press (via the Sacramento Bee) has... oh, it's just too unprofessional to contemplate...

Ozkan, testifying Tuesday in the hate crime trial of Fernando Zavala, said he repeatedly explained to his drunken passenger that he was from the Mediterranean island of Cypress.

Cypress? As in... cypress tree?

Or maybe... Cyprus, as in 'Mediterranean island.' Yeah, I think that might just be what they meant.

**shaking head**

Am I over-reacting? Or are editors and writers now being hired straight out of middle school? (Oh -- with my apologies to middle school students.)