Comments on: The Yugo is History

By: bill h

bill h — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:23:51 +0000

i got a new one in 1988, it was a great little car. we drove it for 13 years, it had 350,000 miles on it when my brother hit a deere with it!!! i wish i could get a nouther new 1!!!!

By: Al Juraj

Al Juraj — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:22:42 +0000

No need to wait; we’ve already got the Holdaewoos!

By: The Original Tom

The Original Tom — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:24:18 +0000

MAX, is it possible you might have read the article AFTER it was fixed, hence why you had no trouble following it?

Wonderful thing about the Internet, it is dynamic.

As for the car, I didn’t know it existed, either. Of course outside of the country of origin it would be considered terrible. But within such countries (like the Polish Polonez), such cars are great for the people, and cheap to buy.

I do prefer to live in a country that actually has some standards of engineering and safety, but such things come at a price.

And just you all wait until (if?) Australia stupidly allows those terrible Chinese cars to be sold here for low, low prices. Who will the joke be on? The country that can’t build a decent car, or the one that allows it to be imported and sold? (Shame on you U.S.).

By: pious

pious — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:35:55 +0000

Just a quick’un about grammar – I find that if I type something myself I know what I am meaning to say so I miss errors. If I dictate (or have someone else read it before it goes) then I (or they) are more likely to pick them up. I personally wouldnt start a sentence with a preposition (“But ask…”), however I would have to defer to the great Sir Winston on that one, quote from article follows :- After an overzealous editor attempted to rearrange one of Winston Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, the Prime Minister scribbled a single sentence in reply: “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

By: Gradski

Gradski — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:22:58 +0000

Anyway, sorry for getting off topic. I don’t think the Yugo is the right car for this day and age and I’m glad to see it go. I know that will rub Yugo enthusiasts the wrong way (yes, they exist!), but I’m sure they’ll keep the Yugo flame burning by restoring and maintaining well-kept examples of the car. It’s not my cup of tea, but as long as others find enjoyment and take care of their own cars then that’s fine by me! Gradski out.

By: Gradski

Gradski — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:19:58 +0000

Okay Max, so why did the Car Advice staff fix (most of) the errors then? My beef was not with the content, but the way it was presented. Talk about using your brain, sheesh!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:17:01 +0000

Max, not to worry, Gradski is correct but although we are a large website these days, the site is still manned by humans and not Robots. If I was to pick up a copy of today’s New York Times or even the Washington Post, I could guarantee that I would find grammatical errors and simple typos.

By: MAX

MAX — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:09:49 +0000

It would seem that you are the only one confused Gradski, I had no trouble following the content of the article, I guess sometimes you just have to use your brain.

This car is a classic!

By: Gradski

Gradski — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 21:56:20 +0000

Anthony, the first paragraph is a bit of a mess. “Is” the Yugo the people’s car of the former Yugoslavia, or “was” it? Also, was it the Yugo that “slid into history” on November 20, or Yugoslavia itself? There’s a multitude of syntactic errors that confuse the reader as to what the actual subject of the sentence is.

Of course we all know that the topic of the article is the Zastava, but as an English major I’m just surprised that these errors can be allowed to slip through the cracks on a fairly large site like this. Elsewhere in the article there’s a few missing commas, hyphens and fullstops too, but I’ll let you guys find them yourselves. I’m not having a dig at you personally, it’s just that poor grammar is one of my pet peeves.

As for the car itself, I won’t be sad to see it go. The Yugo is a real blight on US roads and a severe safety hazard to boot. A cheap purchase price meant it was popular with drivers who didn’t want to spend much on their car and consequently many Yugos are in a terrible state of disrepair. I always exercise extreme caution when I encounter one on the road.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:02:47 +0000

OK Gradski, I’m all ears. I thank Carl for pointing out the typo so, perhaps you could point out all the other errors in the Yugo article. Oh, and do you have anything of substance to say on the actual Yugo car?