One letter changes so much

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

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

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

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

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.

In need of divine intervention

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?