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.

Sometimes there just isn't anything to say.

Let's hope it's a joke.

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. 

Mumms the word?

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.

Spelling Lessons from Lorena Bobbitt

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?