A couple of years ago, The Associated Press provided an item from the Census Bureau about a significant increase in the number of births. The increase reflected growth in the number of women entering childbearing years. Said the AP:

“These daughters of early baby boomers are having their own kids, but getting married first is not necessarily a perquisite to becoming a mother, the report shows.”

Now, the author of that story didn’t mean “perquisite.” The word he wanted was “prerequisite,” but his mind wandered away to thoughts of missing a putt, and the item went out on the wire. Pay attention! Let not the mind wander! Do not miss putts! These are the foremost rules for writers who write for publication.

Last year Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, gave a talk in Huron, Mich. His purpose, reported the Cleveland Plain Dealer, was to illuminate 300-plus guests about the perils facing the Russian people. Enlighten them? Educate them? Hard to say.

A reporter for the Jacksonville (N.C.) Daily News went to North Topsail Beach for a story: “High tides from a northeast wind Wednesday only exasperated an already rapid erosion problem, town authorities said.” Patience, problems! Hold your temper!

A reader of The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer wrote the editor to criticize a column by a writer on urban planning. The columnist had failed to consider the migration of people from the physical work of agricultural life “to more sedimentary city life.” We rocking-chair octogenarians can tell you there is much to be said for the sedimentary life.

“The events of Sept. 11,” said a reader of the Bend (Ore., not Wash.) Bulletin, “are forming an inedible groove in the minds and lives of individuals, families, communities, states and nations.” It’s something to chew on.

The usually impeccable Wall Street Journal turned peccable last month in a dispatch from Oberlin College in Ohio. The story began, “Earlier this month, an English major named Paul shimmied up a heating pipe at 4 a.m.” (The gentleman was trying to be first in line for a rental of a Picasso or a Matisse.) Paul didn’t really “shimmy,” which is to shake, quiver or tremble in the dance of the same name. Neither did he “shinny,” a variant spelling of what he actually did do. According to Merriam-Webster and Random House, he “shinned” up that heating pipe, that is, he moved himself up the pipe by alternately hugging it with his arms, hands or legs.

Far away from Oberlin in Ohio, a Navajo reservation in northern Arizona advertised for teachers and nurses to work with Native American students. “Ours is a progressive district set in a culturally rich and anesthetically pleasing environment.”

Anesthetically pleasing? As we writing coaches say, don’t go to sleep! Pay attention!

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.