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Sunday Lexico-Neuroticism

When discussion of last week's post began drawing from Wikipedia, that fickle forum of boneheads and blowhards, I bowed out.

Then I remembered Sketchy Citation #13, from my criminal law casebook. I realized that maybe I was being cocky and wrong; maybe and Wiki-people aren't all blowhards after all. After all, one can only assume my casebook's rather famous author ordered his sources according to the weight and relevance he assigned them.

This post makes two invitations. You may attempt to convince me to not swear off Wikipedia, notwithstanding its contributors' blatant, sneering ignorance about Hobson, Hobbes, and choosing (which I have attempted to correct, to no avail). Or, you may identify at least three usage errors in the following passage from then-Professor (yes, Professor) Obama's Fall 2002 Constitutional Law III exam (thank you, Armen):

The Pleasant Administration has garnered much of the credit for the mall's success, since it was the Administration that put together the public-private parternership that got the project off the ground. To jump start the development, the city purchased the site five years ago and made it development-ready through the issuance of a general obligation bond, to be paid back out of the city's tax revenues over twenty-five years. Then, after it was unable to sell the property to a developer because of the economic risks involved, the city entered into an agreement with Mogul Development Corporation, whereby [list] . . . .

There is a fourth issue with the quote. I confess that the fourth issue is really a pet peeve and not a proper error, but I'll buy beer and tequila for anyone who shares my sentiments.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on August 03, 2008 (boomark / email).