Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Today's Washington Post, a story uses chaffs where 

Then came high school — they drifted apart — and finally a chance meeting nearly two decades later. It was as though they were always meant to roast coffee together, as if it were written in coffee bean chaffs — the tiny, snowflake-like husks that collect inside a roaster. is appropriate.

I wonder if they hear statics on the radio, or print their newspaper on newsprints.  There's such a thing asa a husk, but just as a mob ceases to be a mob if there's only one person, there is no singular of chaff.

There are so many of these errors in the WaPo, I begin to wonder if they give IQ tests and weed out anyone with a score over 85.  Newspaper editors used to trake great pride in blue-penciling stories that talked of winning the All-American award (it's the All-America award that an All-American wins) or those talking of a banquet dinner (which rarely is a banquet.)