Tag Archives: quotation marks

If at first you don’t succeed . . .

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“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This old adage advocates not only persistence but also repetition. And unlike many counselors, the adage follows its own advice, doubling up on try. Is repetition a good idea in signs? I’ll let you decide after you take a look at these.

Jenny, a student in my writing class at Hugo House (www.hugohouse.org), sent me this one:

Technically this sign isn’t repetitive, because PRICE changes to Prices as the font grows. Why? That’s a puzzle, as is the whole sign. What’s with all the empty space and the solitary O? And why repeat? Perhaps for emphasis: “Hey, customer, we really mean it!” Maybe to scold: “Had you listened the first time, we wouldn’t have to tell you again.” Either way, the punctuation in the last line is a problem. Quotation marks most often indicate the reproduction of someone’s exact words. However, quotation marks can also distance the quoter from the quotation, the visual equivalent of a wink and a nod: “We say LOW PRICE but we actually charge double. And just try cashing in on our GUARANTEE!” A third possibility is that the sign writer followed the recent trend that employs quotation marks as attention-getters. I’m not happy with that usage. It’s hard enough, these days, to separate fact from fiction.

Moving on, here’s a sign I spotted in a dry-cleaning shop:

Why make two statements about PERC? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t NO PERC ODOR a given when there’s NO PERC? Or does someone sell PERC ODOR to people who enjoy chemical smells but don’t want the liver and kidney damage that PERC brings?

This sign’s repetition is the least of its problems:

So they BUY . . . CASH for CA$H? Good to know, though I’m left wondering what the exchange rate is when you convert CASH to CA$H. What really bothers me, though, is the offer to TURN YOUR OLD BOY FRIENDS JEWELRY INTO CA$H. If the statement has something to do with ownership, it should read BOYFRIEND’S JEWELRY or, for someone with an active dating life, BOYFRIENDS’ JEWELRY (the plural possessive). Do I have to point out that turning someone else’s adornments into CA$H is theft? Worse than the apostrophe error is the possibility that AND might be missing from the space between FRIENDS and JEWELRY. Even if you hate your OLD BOYFRIENDS, you can’t swap them for CA$H. You really can’t!

On that stern note, I’ll say BYE BYE for today.

Say Wath?

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The title of this post isn’t a typo. It’s a reaction to a sign I saw recently:

I don’t know WATH a COFFEE with a BOTTOM is, but I do know that someone should have proofread the sign before placing it on the sidewalk. Ditto for this one:

I’m ignoring the quotation marks around include. (Seriously, though, why would anyone enclose include in quotation marks? Forget I asked! I just remembered I’m ignoring!) Instead, I direct your attention to the next bullet point, 30 min message. A message from whom? About what? Thirty minutes makes for a lengthy message, but it’s a decent amount of time for a “massage.”

One more:

GARBADGE caught my eye first, perhaps in a moment of nostalgia for my Girl Scout days, when I earned quite a few badges. But the part of this sign that most interests me is FROM THE RESTAURANT. I still can’t figure out whether THIS SPACE is FROM THE RESTAURANT (which, grammatically, is the correct interpretation) or the GARBADGE CONTAINERS are FROM THE RESTAURANT. I guess either/both could work better than the sign, which was posted a few feet above several overflowing GARBADGE bins. I may go into THE RESTAURANT and ask, after I stop for a COFFEE with a BOTTOM and a 30 min message. You’re welcome to join me!

I Can Only Hope

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When Pandora opened her mythical box and the world’s evils flew out, what remained was hope. In these signs, grammar and spelling and punctuation have taken flight. This post concerns what I hope remains. First, skill with scissors:

I hope the proprietors are good barbers, because the salon is certainly not wasting any energy inserting an apostrophe in kids’ (or kid’s, if only one child is welcome as a “walk-in”). Fortunately, men’s is properly punctuated.

This sign directs my hope to falling (actually, NOT falling) masonry:

What do I hope? That the company maintaining the exterior walls looming over my head in NYC is better at pointing, painting, piping, and venting than it is at spelling. Verticle? Seriously? Moving on to moving:

Here I hope that every client’s move is a great experience. Were I to use this firm (not that I’m going anywhere except on vacation), I would hope for better grammar (our employees our?) and punctuation (safe positive?).

Last but definitely not least:

Where do I start? Spelling: seperate or softner? Subject-verb agreement: work include? Punctuation: double quotation marks for the first line and single for the second? And why any quotation marks at all? I think I’ll have this shop clean my clothes, which I hope will be handled with more care than this sign.

“Punctuation”; Puzzles.

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The title looks strange — on purpose — and it’s no stranger than the random addition or removal of periods, commas, and quotation marks in NYC’s signs. I wrote about the placement of periods in “Stop Full Stop” (http://www.grammarianinthecity.com/?p=1364). In this post I expand on the puzzles of punctuation. First up is this photo, which my friend Erica Berenstein sent me:

Can you spot the period?

Can you spot the period?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reluctantly leaving aside the issue of capital letters, I can’t figure out the marketing advantage of placing a period after “dream” and nowhere else. True, the list separates the clauses (subject-verb pairs), but then why place any periods at all in this ad?

Microsoft takes a different approach to punctuation, as you see in these messages that popped up on my screen during a recent update:

And the comma is there because . . .?

And the comma is there because . . .?

 

The first part of the statement seems to be a shortened form of “we are getting things ready,” an independent clause. But if that’s the intended construction, the rules of Standard English don’t allow you to attach the first independent clause to the second (“Please don’t turn off your PC”) with a comma. Another possible interpretation is that “getting things ready” is an introductory participle, in which case the participle should modify the subject of the following clause. The problem with this explanation is that the subject of “please don’t turn off your PC” is an implied “you.” But “you” aren’t getting things ready. Microsoft is, or so it claims. By the way, there’s a period missing after “PC.” With such attention to detail, the upgrade promises to be buggy at best.

Here’s another Microsoft gem:

windows2

 

 

Okay, the words make sense, and the sentence begins with a capital letter. It ends with . . . nothing. No period. No exclamation point. Not even a question mark, which, given the state of internet security these days, would be more than appropriate.

Last one. Can anyone find a reason for these quotation marks?

P1020112

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m stumped. Feel free to send in your theories, properly punctuated, of course!