Your not good with you're contractions.

I've found a glut of your and you're mistakes lately.  Here are some favorites:

Anyone else disturbed by the fact that a funeral home is asking you to rest in peace on the bench they provided?  The misuse of your is bad enough, but the idea that someone may be waiting behind the bench to embalm me is too much.  I won't get into the weird periods that seem to be trying to indicate there are abbreviations where there clearly aren't any.

You know, I've been to The Limited, and for what they charge for sweaters, I think they should be able to afford a proofreader.  Or a copywriter skilled in English grammar.

My what is on camera?  Disturbingly, this sign appears to me to be on a port-a-potty door.  I could be totally wrong about that, though.

I included this one just to prove that the your and you're confusion doesn't just happen in one direction.  With punctuation like that, I think I'll skip the reentry.

Correcting errors

It's one thing to make a mistake in a sign and not realize it.  It's another thing entirely to realize it and try to correct it.

The error practically disappears, doesn't it?

This lovely specimen is from www.thereifixedit.com.  If' you enjoy a good laugh at incredibly misguided, unskilled, and creative do-it-yourselfers, you'll enjoy the blog. 

Form Failure

Verbs have different forms for a reason.  I know this.  You know this.  But apparently that information is not universally understood:

(thud, thud, thud)

Do you hear that?

 

(thud, thud, thud)

It's me pounding my head on the computer desk in front of me.

 

(thud, thud, thud)

Repeatedly.

I get that certain verb forms actually are tricky.  The past tense of lie being lay, for example.  Or pretty much all irregular past perfect forms for another.

But these aren't tricksters, folks.  They're just regular, standard present-tense-required verbs.  Yes, yes.  I know that thrown is the irregular past perfect form of throw.  But that's not what's called for here.  Why make it harder than it is?

(thud, thud, thud)

I've completely misunderstood this campaign

Until I found this picture of a Sara Lee truck, I thought the Sara Lee slogan was, "Nobody does it like Sara Lee." 

I'm not a fan of the double negative.  I realize that in this case, it says exactly what the Sara Lee people want it to say, but that's beside the point in my opinion.  The ends do not justify the means here. 

And in my defense, I frequently mix up song and jingle lyrics--sometimes hilariously so.  I can't tell you how many times I have been obnoxiously singing loudly off-key along with a song I love when someone I'm with (yes, I make my friends and family members endure the horror of my singing) says, "What did you just say?"  Then I have to repeat the lyrics as I understand them, only to be laughed at and corrected.

This time, though, I have the last laugh.  Sort of.

Nothing like making it permanent

Let me start by explaining that I don't have any tattoos.  I almost got one during spring break my freshman year of college in Panama City.  It would have been a parrot, for the record.  No words.

Because words, my friends, can be tricky.  Even if you tell the tattoo artist the correct way to spell and punctuate, you aren't guaranteed that your very permanent new body art will actually be correct.

I'm not sure it's entirely the tattoo artist's fault here:

In case you're having trouble, it reads, "Its not the cards your delt in life its how you play them."

Okay, so, um, contractions seem to be a problem.  And spelling.  And punctuation.

I don't want to seem like a jerk here, but if you're putting something permenent (Have I mentioned how permanent tattoos are?) on your body, and that something contains a word or phrase or clause or group of clauses, wouldn't you do everything in your power to ensure that it was correct before the ink goes in?

Apparently not.

And if you enjoyed this, you may want to check out where I found it: http://www.chrisconnollyonline.com/.  He's got an entire post dedicated to body art with grammatical and spelling failures.  The site does use some strong and suggestive language, so proceed with caution.