“White midshipmen refused to sit next to Mr. Brown, racial epithets were whispered behind his back, and fellow plebes barred him from joining the choir — all of it mixed with and hidden behind a torrent of regular hazing that underclassmen were expected to bear.”

Of course, it’s not the choir that mixed with hazing. In fact, there is no noun to serve as a referent for it in this sentence from an obituary in the New York Times.

Using two sentences might have been better. Drop a period after choir. Continue, say, with These indignities mixed with and hid behind the regular hazing . . .

“Quill lives only 12 years, but when you consider the devotion, responsibility and affection a dog can demonstrate in that time, you appreciate just how full their lives can be.”

Descriptive grammarians make allowances for “everyone has their opinion,” but people, it’s a slippery slope. Does every dog have their day?

The fix here is easy: When you consider the affection dogs demonstrate, you appreciate how full their lives can be.

“As described by several aides, that quick decision and his subsequent announcement in a hastily scheduled network television interview were thrust on the White House by 48 hours of frenzied will-he-or-won’t-he speculation after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. all but forced the president’s hand by embracing the idea of same-sex unions in a Sunday talk show interview.”

Score one for the good guys, or two—both belatedly. Barry did the right thing. So did a Times copy editor. In my print edition, the above sentence has a comma after interview. The error here resembles what I have called the Times Comma, which inadvertently separates subject and verb in a long sentence.

Quibble: The opening As described makes us anticipate an explanation of what the decision was, not how it was made. An easy grammatical fix is to omit the As, but perhaps it is as well to let the journalese stand.

“Many other elite universities, including Yale and Carnegie Mellon, are moving aggressively online.”

Clearer: Many universities are moving online aggressively.

Best: Many universities are moving online.

The adverb spices up the sentence, but do readers have faith in the information it conveys? Harvard and MIT, the universities that made the joint announcement, are beginning with a handful of courses.

“Why Malcolm Gladwell will argue that college football should be banned at the Slate/Intelligence Squared live debate on May 8 in New York City.” [Headline in Slate]

Because e-journalists can’t tackle? Because the dais is too small?

“The designated hitter took lefthanded starter Tommy Milone (3-2, 3.69) deep to both bullpens, the latter in the fifth inning that caromed off Reddick’s glove and sent him tumbling into the Sox bullpen.”

Was it a bullpen (the latter one) or an inning that caromed?

“While Mr. Clinton’s presidency was rocked by controversy, his image has largely improved since leaving office.”

Had the country been led by a simulacrum? The guy seemed so present, so fully human. (What’s meant: His image has improved since his leaving office.)

Although misunderstanding is less likely in this sentence about the Obama team’s response to a book by Bill Clinton, the placement of the modifier does suggest that the irritation had curled up in bed with the volume… and then vanished: “Eventually, after reading it, though, the irritation dissipated and the president’s advisers concluded that it was O.K. for them.”

If the reporter had placed a comma between the independent clauses, he might have caught the odd placement of the introductory preposition.

“Google Docs has several million users, and the relatively few number of people on Google’s Chromebooks will automatically move to Google Drive as well.”

Of course, what’s meant is “the relatively small number of,” but the error can serve as a reminder that the concise alternative for “small number of” is “few.”

“This month, a small group showed up to hear Rab Wilson, a Scottish lyricist, read his 15-sonnet tribute to the erstwhile Flying Scot, a legendary roadster.”

I love this report on a quirky bike shop … but I fear that erstwhile cannot be used in place of late lamented. Erstwhile means former and refers to something that had a quality, trait, or name in the past but does no longer. The Free Dictionary gives the example erstwhile companions. Once they were; now they are not.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces erstwhile as an adverb (meaning formerly) to the poet Edmund Spenser in 1569: “Which erstwhile so pleasaunt scent did yelde.” The adjectival use begins in the twentieth century and appears always to have been arch and consciously archaic.

Anyway: The Flying Scot would be erstwhile only if it had been transformed into something else—if the bicycle were now, say, Der fliegende Holländer … 

Sure, Ann Patchett. Tell us why you should have won the Pulitzer Prize — but do so, please, with those “perfectly made” sentences you extol.

Here’s how your NYTimes op-ed ends: “This was the year we all lost.”

What’s meant as a final, (melo)dramatic stride is a stutter-step. Did we all, like winos on extended benders, lose a year? Or was the current awards cycle one in which neither writers nor readers benefitted?

Why not avoid ambiguity? Simpler is better: This year, we all lost.

While we’re at it, did you need the comma in the following sentence? “It’s fine to lose to someone, and galling to lose to no one.”