My son is a little pedant [proud]

[Threadie]

He spotted a comma error in The Guardian's Greek Monsters wallchart!

Griffon
King of the birds and the beasts who laid gold eggs in gold nests.

Loftily, DS2, 8, says, 'There should be a comma after beasts, otherwise it says that he is king of all of the egg-laying birds and beasts, which can't be right as beasts don't lay eggs.'

I agree, because plainly they mean to say that the Griffon lays the eggs. (Though I imagine its the female Griffon that does that, rather than the king.)

Should I write to The Guardian's Corrections and Clarifications column?

Definitely write, but I think your son should do it, not you!

oh yes, let him write it!

I would be so proud if one of mine corrected a mistake in the paper

Well done your DS!

Those Guardian thingies are fun but soooo crappily put together. It really annoyed me with the animals ones that all the insects and creepy crawlies were not to the right scale with each other. Would have been so easy to do...

What about the platypus? It's an egg-laying mammal.

Oh yes: probably should be 'golden'. And he said that two of the captions had been interchanged. So, yes, Snowleopard, pretty crappily put together.

Grr at Bluestocking's biological counter-pedantry! Though in fairness to DS I don't think the platypus or any other critter except the griffon laid golden eggs.

Depends what you call a beast of course - snakes and crocs lay eggs. But your DS is still right about the sentence construction.

Well done threadlet.