Today's fun is from Madison.com. That's right. The Madison newspaper website. This likely was in a print article that went out to millions of people. Or at least 10. Whatever the case, these people claim to be real journalists who write shit for a living.
The thing about Owl Creek, it was brand new.
What the hell? This is not a complete sentence. What the hell is that comma doing there? You can't just substitute commas for words whenever you feel like it. That's not how sentences work. Do you see how this sounds stupid? Perhaps that should have been your first indication that something was wrong.
There are two acceptable responses to remedy this situation. The first one is fucking obvious:
The thing about Owl Creek is it was brand new.
See how that's a sentence? Isn't that neat how I did that? It's not magic. If you can't figure out the word "is," I'm very concerned for you.
Here's the other option:
The thing about Owl Creek: it was brand new.
Do you notice how I used a colon there instead of a comma? That's because using a comma is wrong. The colon indicates you're setting the reader up for something. What is the thing about Owl Creek? Intrigue and suspense! This is the purpose of the colon. A comma makes no fucking sense.
This was the opening line of an article. Seriously. That means this person probably read this sentence a million times and still found it acceptable. And that makes me sad.
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