Disasters in Grammar

Holidays I've Missed

2010-03-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been blogging much lately. Sorry to my six loyal fans. Thanks for not unsubscribing. You're all super.

Anyhow, I had several things for holidays that I have now missed. Here are the two best, and if I can figure out how to get the third best one off my phone, I'll put that up, too.

First, proof that even huge companies with huge advertising budgets putting tons of money into full-page ads in giant newspapers that should also be proofreading can screw up big time:

Are you sure they're not worth more than a turkey dinner, History.com? You know, maybe the story is untold for a reason. A reason such as no one literate being available to tell it.

And here's a little bit of love for you.

Well, maybe not you. Everyone except you, perhaps.

And what happened to the apostrophe in Valentine's Day? Or the periods at the end of the two miniature sentences at the bottom?

Apparently, they were also excepted.

Misanthropes from Injury

2009-11-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

I write for a few local newspapers, and I have been known to include typos in my work. Not intentionally, mind you, as if to discover whether or not my editors are actually doing their jobs, but because I find editing my own work really difficult. I know what it's supposed to say, so my brain often tricks me into thinking things are correct even when they aren't.

Apparently, I am not the only person with this problem:

I'm not going to comment on the random capitalization (I know it's the beginning of each line and that's not exactly random, but it's pretty random in terms of rules for capitalization). Instead, I would like to focus on the line that reads, "To avoid others from injury!"

My response to this line is, "Huh?"

Is Injury the city in which the Fitness Centre is located, and because it wasn't the first word in the line, it just didn't get that much-deserved capital I? And how will putting away my weights after I use them save me from coming into contact with other people from what apparently would have to be my hometown? And is everyone who uses the Fitness Centre such a complete misanthrope that directions for avoiding others is desirable?

Extra words...What I really need are some extra words.

2009-11-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've been hanging on to this little beauty for a while because I hadn't quite decided if it was a grievous enough error to be considered a disaster. But I've decided to go ahead with it because of the enthusiasm in the last line.

You probably realize that the phrase, "the usage of," really irks me because it's such a glaring example of how not to be concise. It's not technically grammatically incorrect, but stylistically, it gets low marks.

What I really love, though, is that Management is apparently the cell phone abuser. Why else would the sign so enthusiastically thank Management for refraining from using his cell phone in line?

Avoiding conflict

2009-11-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

You can always tell if a store owner has gotten fed up with a particular issue or complaint when he or she puts up a sign to deal with it. Think about the signs at grocery stores and other places that sell cigarettes and beer: "We ID Under XX" implies that if you are under XX, you need to have your ID ready or put the beer and smokes back. "We do not sell firewood," really says, "Please stop asking for firewood." "Donated items only" indicates that the food bank people are tired of sorting the garbage out of the food collection bin.

Of course, sometimes a sign made for such a reason gives an unintended message.

Such as, "I'm a jerk."

And apparently a jerk without much background in the difference between to and too.

Just don't ask us to proofread them.

2009-11-04T10:31:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, though: it's a good-looking sign. You know, except for the glaring misuse of an apostrophe.

Your not good with you're contractions.

2009-10-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

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.

One letter changes so much

2009-10-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

As subject-verb agreement goes, this is a pretty major offense:

In all fairness, I'm almost 100% certain that the final A just fell off this sign. Even the centering is off without the extra letter. The sign is in such good condition otherwise, though, that it does make you wonder. Maybe it was scraped off by a grammar-hating troglodyte.

Because only a troglodyte could hate grammar enough to do something like that.

Lookin' for love in all the wrong places

2009-10-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

I've told students time and time again that if they learn to use colons and semicolons correctly, they will seem more educated when they write. Of course, use them incorrectly, and you wind up looking like a bumbling idiot:

The only thing that surprises me about this study is that no one proofread it before posting it on the internet.

Oh, wait. That doesn't surprise me at all. But that's because I'm a sex skinnier woman; nothing surprises us.

Grammatical revelation

2009-10-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

I'm a fan of witty church signs. You know, the ones that say things like, "A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing," or, "Don't give up; Moses was once a basket case," or, "Soul food served here." I know they're cheesy, and I know not everyone appreciates them, but I enjoy them.

Of course, screw it up, and the message may not say what is intended:

Nothing, that is, except homophones.

Not just an option

2009-10-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

End punctuation. It's so final. And for those who have completion anxieties, it's probably just too scary to use it. I'm guessing the person who typeset this sign had such a complex:

It would be one thing if there were no periods at all on the sign. Then one could assume that punctuation in general just doesn't work well on this type of sign or with the equipment used to make the sign. But that's not the case. In fact, one could argue that the punctuation following 13th, 17th, 18th, and 21st is superfluous (or at least inappropriate; except for the last one, they could be commas). In fact, if the typesetter had just used those periods after the sentences, there would have been exactly enough to appropriately punctuate them all.

That brings us to another little issue: fragments. The first two "sentences" are not actually complete. They're fragments. The next two, though, are complete sentences. I guess I'm just wondering, with all that blank space at the bottom of the sign, why the first two phrases couldn't have been made complete sentences? Or if space really was an issue, why the two complete sentences weren't reworded more concisely in order to make space for all sentences to be complete? With periods.

Of course, there's no year provided on this historical marker, either, so apparently several necessities were deemed optional.

And what's up with the assault on the Peach Orchard? Why was the slaughter of innocent peach trees necessary? Unless they referred to the Union troops as "Peach Orchard." Now, I'm no military person, but I'm thinking you'd want the code name for the enemy's troops to be both easier to say and less, um, I don't know, cheerful sounding.

Maybe that's just me.

Mistake's Using Apostrophe's

2009-10-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

Why? Why do so many people think that adding an s automatically requires the addition of an apostrophe? It just doesn't make sense. Plurality and possession are fairly basic writing skills to master. Still, adding apostrophes to words that are intended to be merely plural seems to be a tremendously widespread problem.

Expert's only what? What does the expert own only one of? Possibly an exclamation point. And that's it, right there: the expert's only exclamation point. Definitely worthy of a permanent sign, don't you think? And a lovely sign, too: complete with some simple graphics and a little graffiti. Nice.

I won't go into the superfluous use of quotation marks, but apparently the margarita here has $1,99 Mon to Thurs (or some other days). But only with your dinner (or something rather unlike a dinner). To be fair, I'm fairly certain that the writer of this sign may not speak English as a first language.

Orange peel aroma's what? Aroma? And it is equally enjoyable on it is own. Yeeaahhhhh. And don't get me started on the lack of a terminal comma and the weird sentence fragment that lacks parallel structure.

I'm guessing that the sign writer couldn't recall the spelling rule for changing y to ie when adding s, so he or she just added an apostrophe. Of course, maybe the writer just doesn't know how to pluralize anything: product wasn't pluralized at all. Not even incorrectly.

Sometimes there just isn't anything to say.

2009-10-16T11:17:00.001-07:00

In need of divine intervention

2009-10-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

Historically speaking, there are a number of things that have been done in the name of God that weren't very, um, godly. And while a confusion of homophones certainly doesn't rank up there with any sort of religious war, it's definitely bad:

At least it has some rhythm and meter, eh?

Let's hope it's a joke.

2009-10-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

I can't recall exactly where I found this little clipping--online somewhere--but I hope it's a joke. I hope Lynzee Stauss is a budding satirist still trying to get a grip on a difficult genre. Or that she's not a real person, and this is all faked.

Wow. There are feminists planning rallies against this little op-ed or rolling over in their graves as we speak. Sorry, ladies.

So many errors. Let me explain. No, no. There is too much; let me sum up.

Paragraph 1: shifts in person, pronoun-antecedent agreement, failure to use an apostrophe with a contraction, misplaced modifier, spelling issues

Paragraph 2: (Oh, crap! The whole rest of the article is the second paragraph.) failure to divide paragraphs, pronoun-antecedent agreement, awkward construction, shifts in person, spelling issues, confusion of because and cause, misplaced modifiers, failure to hyphenate multiple-word adjectives, general comma issues, sentence fragment

I'm tempted at this point to rail against the message of the article, but I think that is done so well by the writing itself that it's truly unnecessary for me to do it (even though I really, really want to).

Okay. My blood pressure is coming back into the borderline range again. I'll be fine. Really.

Whoa. Where are my beta blockers?

I truly hope this has been photoshopped or something. Surely no one would misspell something in 6-foot-tall letters, right? Especially a word that is only four letters in length and written on a sign right next to the area to be painted.

It reminds me of one of my all-time favorite football commercials.

UPDATE: After a brief search for Lynzee Strauss, I found that this poor girl really did herself in with this article posted on the internet in 1996. All sorts of nastiness ensued. I'm guessing, based on the numerous things I read, that "College Isn't Necessary" was a poor attempt at satire.

I'll have one of everything.

2009-10-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been to a restaurant where everything on the menu looks so good that you just want to order one of everything? Apparently, these folks feel the same way about punctuation:

"Yeah, I'll take a well-placed terminal comma, but I'd like to substitute a misplaced semicolon for the other comma, and I'll have a side of ellipses instead of a colon, please."

Except rather than ordering one of everything, it's like ordering spaghetti and meatballs with a tuna fish instead of one of the meatballs and peanut butter instead of garlic bread. It's a vomit-inducing plateful of poor punctuation choices.

Also Known As

2009-10-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

I'm really a bit of a purist when it comes to quotation marks. I prefer for them to be used only for direct quotations. I realize that that hope is not based entirely in reality, however.

Because quotation marks are also often used to indicate that something is not authentic or an imperfect substitute or something other than what it is called, misuse of quotation marks, particularly by those who use them as a misguided way to draw attention to or put emphasis on a word or group of words, can be quite hilarious.

So they might be Black Angus steaks, but they darned sure are not certified. The word certified, by the way, was in quotation marks everywhere it occurred in the menu. If you're going to use them incorrectly, I suppose you might as well use them consistently incorrectly, eh?

And then there's this high note of quotation mark misusage hilarity:

Actually, it's far more sad than hilarious.

I'm not sure what the EXes are all about, and I'm not going to get into a discussion about the use of till instead of until. That's a gripe for another day. There's just so much wrong with almost everything in that sign, it's hard to me to see straight at this point. My eyes are burning. Look away!

If your retinas are not aflame from the atrocity above, you may want to check out The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Hilarious stuff over there. Better, even, than the examples above.

Not to be ignored

2009-10-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

Colons, that is.

Colons have a number of uses, but in warnings or notices, they separate the introductory word from the information the notice provides. Like this:

Warning: Failure to use colons may result in embarassment.

For example:

Those stainless steel pans certainly are important.

Now I will say that while the colon would make this more clear (noting that there is something important about the stainless steel pans), generally what follows the colon in cases of introduction like this should be clearly important. An even better solution would be a reworded headline such as Important Stainless Steel Pan Information.

Then there's this one:

How many ladder emergencies have you had recently? A colon after LADDER would clear this right up.

The sign writer could also have reworded this one to LADDER FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY, but the colon is a whole lot shorter and would have required no further repositioning of words.

Not a good sign

2009-10-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

It looks like this proofreading service could use a proofreading service.

I know some people are thinking that the semicolon should be a colon, but it shouldn't. It just simply should not be there. This is a basic punctuation error, and what makes it hilarious is that you would think a copy editing company would actually use their copy editors for their online advertisements.

Or maybe they were just hoping that their potential clients are so uninformed in the ways of grammar that they wouldn't notice. Either way it's sad.

Or funny. You choose.

It's a special day! Every day!

2009-09-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

I suppose, technically, this photo doesn't have a truly grammatical error in it. But I'm of the opinion that if you are going to have a day to celebrate something, it should be one day, and not a whole month:

I'm really glad that McDonald's has decided to honor their employees with a day of appreciation. It would just be nice if we knew when they are doing that.

"National People Day" (the lamest employee appreciation day name I've ever heard, by the way) would indicate that there is one day to celebrate the hard-working crew at MickeyD's. September, however, is a month, not a day. Nowhere in the fine print is there a single day outlined.

So why isn't it National People Month? Or why didn't they choose a single day? And--possibly most importantly--what are they doing to recognize the crew? Because I wouldn't feel very honored by a strangely ambiguous sign placed on tables that customers won't even see until after I've placed their orders.

I'm not saying; I'm just saying.

Mumms the word?

2009-09-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

When did doubling the end consonant before adding an s become acceptable?

There is a rule for doubling the vowel at the end of a word when adding an ending. It seems like a complicated rule (double the final consonant if it is a single consonant preceded by a single vowel and the ending you're adding begins in a vowel), and if you don't know it or remember it intuitively from years of spelling in elementary school, using a spell-checking program is a good idea for you.

It seems to me that Meijer sign makers would have a spell checker at their disposal. Especially since this sign was obviously typed on some sort of computer.

Martha should be outraged!

2009-09-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Outraged that two errors would appear in advertisements in her fine, fine publication, Martha Stewart Living. Typos in publications are relatively common; I can usually find one or two in any publication. Living is an exception, though. I'm hard-pressed to find a typo or grammatical error in a whole year of issues. I like to think that it's because Martha is so detail oriented.

Apparently, though, if I want errors in Martha's publication, I need to look in the less expensive advertising in the very back.

First up, baths for sale:

Yes, folks, for just under ten bucks, you can purchase a bath from a magazine ad. Martha herself takes these ten-dollar baths, and she loves them. She recommends the FREE* monogramming, too. Only Martha could find a way to monogram an action such as bathing.

I'm fairly certain that these ads are priced based on dimensions, not word count, and I don't know about you, but I see quite a bit of empty space in this ad for one additional word of clarification.

And what's up with all the asterisks? Really? Is the deal so shady that everything needs legal fine print?

Disturbed by the lack of proofreading or copywriting skill, I turned the page to find this beauty (and please excuse the fuzzy pictures; I'm a grammarian, not a photographer):

I know you don't see a problem with this ad; the photo is too out of focus to read it. The issue is in the second paragraph, and it's one that most people would overlook, anyhow:

That last line ends with, "for those that just love to cook."

Apparently GelPro mats are designed for non-humans that love to cook. If they were talking about people with an affinity for cooking, they surely would have used who instead of that. And I don't know if you've priced out GelPro mats, but I have (because I do love to cook, and my kitchen floor is tile), and I'm guessing that my dog can't afford one.

She's a lousy cook, anyhow.

Spelling Lessons from Lorena Bobbitt

2009-09-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

The sign was supposed to read, "Fresh Cut Peonies."

Alternate title:

"Who Knew They Were So Cheap?"

This beauty was a viral internet sensation a few years back (note the date on the photo), but it's a good example of why it's important to have someone take a look at your writing before making it public. It's also a good example of why paying serious attention in spelling class is important. And recognizing that being a bad speller isn't the end of the world, but it does require that you ask for help now and then.

Remember, folks, even if the poor employee who put up this tragic marquee had had access to spell-check, penis would not have been flagged since it is, in fact, a real word.

For anyone who might be thinking that I'm overlooking another error, I'm not. The adjective fresh would modify peonies, not cut. We're not talking about a florist whose manner of cutting flowers is too forward. And in this case, of course, fresh modifies penis, which would mean the insertion of the adverb freshly would make the sign even more suggestive--if you can imagine--than it already is.

In addition, fresh is essential to the way the sign is (incorrectly) written. I mean, who would want a stale cut penis?

A: At 5 Months or on These Signs

2009-09-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Q: Where should you avoid contractions?

There's so much wrong with this billboard that I hesitate to stop at the grammar, but I will. I do have to ask, though: Did Texas officials consider following their state tourism endorsement with, "Now tell your husband to get hi's eyes back on the road"? Because that contraction makes just as much sense.

I love this one: a classic case of forgetting what a contraction stands for. There are so many reasons to have lettering more than eight inches tall looked over by a professional; this is one of them.

Apparently when Tampa hosted the Super Bowl, this sign went up to encourage football enthusiasts to explore the rest of Tampa. The mayor told the offenders to take it down or fix it. They chose to simply remove the offending contraction and insert ellipses instead. Works for me.

A: At 9 Months or on These Signs

2009-09-16T19:12:00.000-07:00

Q: Where do you really want contractions?

This beauty appears to be one of those lovely and hard-to-vandalize/correct carved plastic numbers. It is apparently hung prominently in a pizza place near Niagara Falls. I hope it's on the Canadian side. (Sorry, Canada; I'm rooting for the literacy of my own country.)

This one was on a store somewhere on the east coast as Hurricane Isabel approached. Since I know it was almost certainly made by a U.S. citizen and I can't just blame Canada, at least I can take comfort in the fact that the sign might have been destroyed by high winds.

I'm kidding, obviously. Well, sort of. I'm comforted in knowing that the sign eventually came down in one way or another.

And I hope it was because someone took it down.

Apostrophe Apocalypse

2009-09-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to type the word apocalypse? I do. Apostrophe is no walk in the park, either, I'll have you know.

Today's offenders are abusers of the apostrophe. I've said this before in my column, but I simply cannot come to terms with how many people want to use -- and do use -- apostrophes in plurals that show no possession. Honestly, I just don't get it.

Let's take a look at this first example, shall we?

You see? The person typing up this flyer was so confused that he or she just decided to go with the 50-50 split: "Well, I'm not sure whether or not I need these up-high comma doohickeys, so I'll just put one up here on WEDNESDAYS and one down here on Margaritas. That way, I'll have it right at least half of the time. Yeah, that's the way to go. At least then I won't look like I don't know what I'm doing."

Okay, so this person probably knew they are apostrophes and not flying commas, but seriously. Remind me not to hit the OTB with this person. I'm thinking he or she would put money on every horse in the race. You know, just in case.

Moving right along, here's another sparkling example of the best of intentions gone grammatically awry. I have to hand it to these folks, though: at least they had the courage to use the apostrophes incorrectly every time.

Now, just so that we're clear, an apostrophe with a non-possessive plural is very occassionally permitted. If you have an abbreviation that uses lower-case letters each spoken individually such as tv, it is acceptable to use an apostrophe to avoid confusion. I prefer to capitalize TV so that the plural TVs is clear without an apostrophe, but that's just me, and that's not possible with every lower-case abbreviation.

Still, that tiny exception seems to be the downfall of so many people who have no idea what is and is not an abbreviation. I'll grant you that semi is an abbreviated version of semitrailer or semifinal, but because it is so widely used, it has become its own word. Besides that, one doesn't say, "I saw an s - e - m - i yesterday," so it in no way qualifies for the above exception.

And yet we have this:

I realize that the photo doesn't show the whole sign, but it's not a possessive. Clearly confused, the same company has a sign at the other entrance:

Hmmmm. No apostrophe. All caps. Well, all except for the lower-case s. *sigh*

Welcome to Disasters in Grammar!

2009-09-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hello, fellow grammar enthusiasts. I have started this website because I really enjoy grammar, and I don't think it has to be something that only stodgy old grammarians can understand. I also believe that grammar can be a lot of fun, and learning how to avoid mistakes doesn't have to be akin to watching paint dry.

My hope is that this website will provide all sorts of funny examples of how not to write and speak. The aim is not to make anyone feel stupid; rather, the aim is to point out how easy it is to make grammatical mistakes and how easy it is to fix them.

Finally, I want to encourage anyone who reads this blog to send me photos, video, or audio of disasters in grammar they witness. I'd like to be able to post something almost every day, but I'll need reader help and submissions to do so. With that in mind, there are a few guidelines for submissions:

1. Any photos or other media you send me must either be your own, or you need to include where you found the disaster (website, photo of a friend, whatever).

2. Submissions should be of printed or spoken material of a professional nature. In other words, please don't send me something you wrote simply for the purpose of submitting. I'm looking for hilariously incorrect billboards, advertisements, headlines, publications, speeches, and so on. I'm not looking for the average fifth-grader's text messages or letters from your great aunt Ida. If someone paid to make it public, it probably meets this qualification.

3. Let me know where the picture or video was taken and what it is. The more background information you can provide, the better.

4. Obscene submissions will not be posted. The penis post is as vulgar as it gets with me, and I questioned posting even that. If it's suggestive enough that you wouldn't want a middle school student to see it, think again.

Now, don't you have something you would like to send to me?