Tag Archives: spelling

Proof

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The signs in this post are proof (noun) that you should always proof (verb) your writing. If you don’t, well, read on to see some possible consequences.

My friend Barry sent me this headline:

Oh, the irony! Also the confusion, because the Spelling Bee might be on Thursday if the letter h went astray or on Tuesday if the letter r was mistakenly inserted in place of an e. Perhaps this year’s champ can be enlisted to proofread next year’s notice.

Also sent by Barry is this portion of a law proposed by state legislators:

The politicians crafting this sentence telling teachers how to teach should have spent a little more time on their own homework. Then perhaps they’d know that the word they were looking for is tenets, not tenants. Again, the irony.

This one, which my friend Mary sent, is fun:

I don’t own a car, but if I did, I’d certainly obey this sign and DRIVE WITH CAKE.

Last but not least:

Perhaps the council snatched an r from the Spelling Bee headline and grabbed an extra e from somewhere else?

The point of all these examples: rememberer two proffread!

The Trouble with D

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At first glance, D seems like a simple letter. It’s hard to mispronounce and easy to write, so long as you remember where the lower-case letter bulges and don’t draw a “Happy Webbing” card for a bride and groom, as a child I know once did. But deciding when and where to insert the letter D is anything but simple, judging from signs I see around the city. I posted examples of problematic D signs in two previous posts (Got a D? | Grammarian in the City and Grade D+ | Grammarian in the City). A recent spate of signs mishandling this letter prompts me to revisit the issue.

Here’s an example I saw at an arts venue:

Advanced? Are we talking tickets with doctorates? Stubs with evolved thinking?

Another gem, courtesy of my friend Catherine:

Ignore the misspelling of appreciated, if you can, and focus on the d. If the business owners appreciated (or appriciated) the business, what do they do now — take the business for granted?

This one comes from my friend Wendy:

Further noticed sounds like a temper tantrum: until we get more attention and are further noticed, we’ll be closed.

This sign, sent by my friend Ruth, lacks the letter d:

Selective? Hm..m. Does the store owner say, I’ll let you buy this at a discount but the guy behind you has to pay full price”? Or maybe the selective items refuse to be bought by customers who are not up to the items’ high standards? Substituting selected for selective solves the problem.

I wished you a happy 2022. Oops — make that wish. And I really do!

Hiring and Firing

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Recent walks around New York give me hope that the city is rebounding from some pandemic-related woes. Businesses seem to be hiring (and occasionally firing — more on that in a moment) and a new crop of gloriously silly signs have appeared. Nothing personal, sign-writers, but could you please check your dictionaries before hanging a help-wanted notice? Otherwise you end up with something like this:

Who knew that four words could encompass so many mistakes! I’ll skip the skipped subject, because the owners of the store posting this sign are, by implication, the ones who need, well, whatever a delivery personal is. Perhaps it’s what happens to a pregnant patient after nineteen hours of labor. Maybe it’s a supply of toilet paper, left in a package room. Those delivery situations are undeniably personal, but I’m betting the sign-writer meant delivery personnel, which is good news for job-seekers. Personnel is a collective noun, so the store hopes to hire several people to handle delivery.

Which brings me to this sign:

Okay, the word personnel is misspelled, but I can live without a double N. I do object to is. A group of workers, entering individually on their own two feet, deserve the plural verb are.

This one falls into the “so close!” category:

On the bright side, the sign refers to personnel, which is the correct term, correctly spelled. Not on the bright side is deliveries. How exactly do deliveries sign in?

That’s it for hiring. Now for the firing:

The pay may be terrible at the deli where this sign appears every month or so, probably because it’s hard to find a good grilled man who doesn’t take too much time off for visits to a burn clinic.

Parting, personal advice: stay cool!

Sign-Spotters

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What would I do without the sharp eyes and excellent grammar skills of my friends? This post is fashioned from the silly signs and ads they spotted. First up features a rather unappetizing menu item, noted by my friend Helen:

Liced?

I’m sure that she ordered an insect-free beverage. Or at least I hope so!

Catherine found this one:

Can other types of snakes relax there?

I imagine a “rattlesnake hammock” as a long, narrow sling, perhaps with some curves built in. I hope there’s a special pocket for the rattle. Imagine trying to warn off predators only to discover that the tip of your tail is caught on the cloth!

My friend Marlene discovered these two beauties on an academic website and sent me the links. I neglected to take a screen shot, so I’ll simply quote. Here’s the first:

TWO YEAR OLD TEACHER NEEDED

About a week later, this appeared:

THREE YEAR OLD TEACHER TO START ASAP

As Marlene noted, “They upped the age, probably because there were no inquiries from two-year-old teachers.” The school certainly sounds desperate! If you’re three and jobless, consider applying.

And if you notice any other linguistic absurdities, please send them ASAP, regardless of how old you are.

Almost Perfect

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Perfect isn’t possible, as we all know.  Almost perfect, on the other hand, is not only possible but common. But oh, sometimes that little gap between what you mean and what you write makes a huge difference. Here’s a bar with parenting problems:

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mom” is my favorite day of the week. What’s yours? You can also see the first line of this sign as the beginning of a short-wave radio transmission: “Mom to Fri: I cooked all morning and you’d better show up for lunch!”  In that scenario, Fri is the son or daughter of someone with really poor naming skills.

Next is the announcement of a Supreme Court decision, sent to me by my son the attorney:

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Let’s” is the contraction of “let us.” The headline makes sense, sort of, if you insert a comma: “Court, let us states legalize sports betting.” The comma places “Court” in direct address, signifying that the states are pleading for legalized gambling. Which some were, as I understand.  I imagine that the headline writers were too busy canceling their bookie accounts to recognize that an apostrophe shouldn’t appear in that spot.

This sign was sent by a friend. I suspect the Tourist Board was rather upset to see that some important letters were missing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

To answer the question in line one: I did not know. Kansas City probably didn’t know either. Nor, I guess, did visitors. My advice: substitute “yearly.” It’s easy to make that word perfect.

 

PRE- Views

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Three letters, three problems. Maybe more, if you estimate the number of misinterpretations possible with these signs, all of which contain the letters P, R, and E. Such as this one:

The prefix “pre-” means “before.” The office referred to in the sign above (a center providing services to senior citizens) closed . . . before its proper time?  forever, as in “permanently”? Perhaps both are true, and, I might add, tricky topics when you’re talking to or about old people, who may find distress in the concept of closing “premanently.” I passed one of the new locations of this organization yesterday, by the way. It’s at the bottom of a steep outdoor staircase, with no elevator in sight. They might be inviting a few premanent climbing injuries.

Onward and upward, to this ad, which appeared in today’s paper:

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Pre-owned” used to be the new “used,” but now, in a post-truth world, “pre-owned” is “new.”  (Digression: If this is the post-truth era, what was the pre-truth era like?)

I’m not wild about “pre-owned,” but to my mind it’s better than this expression:

 

 

 

 

“Pre-loved”? Seriously? I like my handbag. I use my handbag. I carry it everywhere. When I was little, the only expression I learned in Croatian, which my parents spoke when they wanted to hide something from me, was “watch your handbag,” so afraid were they that a passerby would snatch up my lunch money. But love? Nope. And if someone did “pre-love” a handbag, you have to wonder what shape the bag’s in. I think I’ll stick to “new” and “used,” premanently.

Math Problems

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Although I write about language, I’m not a total tourist in Math Land. That’s why these signs caught my eye, and not in a good way — more in tune with Margaret Atwood’s lines: “you fit Into me / like a hook into an eye / a fish hook / an open eye.” Okay, maybe not so extreme, but the signs are still problematic.

This poster offers a great deal:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two-for-one tickets: not a problem. A week running from “Feb 12 to 25”: problem! Well, a problem for the performers if they’re being paid by the week and not per performance. A boon for ticket-buyers, who have 14 days to take advantage of this deal.

If theater’s not for you, try this gym:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kudos to whoever realized that the compound adjective “one-hour” needs a hyphen. No kudos (anti-kudos?) for the person who decided to offer “3 classes & gloves.” Maybe the gym is aiming for the alien market, with three-armed boxers? Or for anxious fighters who take comfort in the idea that a spare glove is available?

This one mixes grammar with math:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The terrible layout made me ponder what “40 0ver Toppings” could be. Once I had decoded the meaning, I still winced at “over.” Traditionally, “more than” is proper for things you count and “over” for things you measure. I thought about writing “more than 40 toppings” on duct tape and attaching it to the sign, but I have more fun mocking mistakes than correcting them. Plus, I don’t want to go to jail.

This last one lacks a number:

I won’t quibble about “thru,” because, well, if I quibbled about spelling mistakes I’d be busy all day, every day. But “close”? This store is open from “4 pm” (where did the periods go?) until “close”? Isn’t everything open until “close,” or rather, until “closing”? To paraphrase all the teenagers I’ve ever met, “duh.” Add the appropriate, tell-me-something-I-don’t-know intonation and an eloquent eye-roll for the full effect.

That’s it for today. I was open to solving math problems, but now I close.

Sspeling Erorrs

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I don’t usually bother with spelling mistakes, but when they appear on expensively produced ads, it seems to me that someone should have proofread before printing. Or before handing the finished product over to the customer. Or, at the very least, before hanging the sign on a store window, truck, or sandwich board.

Whether to double a letter or not seems to attract (atract?) errors like iron filings to a magnet (fillings to a magnett?):

 

Does this shop offer feline treats (mice, catnip, permission to snooze on a sofa that’s usually off-limits)? Or does the store host gossip fests, where guests can be as catty as they please?

Maybe the shop that does “cattering” should lend one of its Ts to this food cart:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I leave aside the issue of eating lunch at 10 AM or 4 PM, given that New York is the city that never sleeps and meals roam around the clock dial like sleepwalkers in a kitchen. Nor will I focus on the random capital letters, though I can’t help wondering whether lunch Time is supposed to reflect the eternal nature and importance of Time or whether the expression refers to a magazine. Instead I’ll confine myself to the meaning of the first line. Is the food cart offering to have the employee in charge of placing rice on the plate accompany you while you eat? And is Free Can Soda a call to action? I do like that sm matches content to form. The abbreviation sm is indeed small.

I don’t want you to think that whether to double the letter T is the only problem out there. S comes with stress in these signs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had I a marker and not an aversion to graffiti, I’d remove the extra S from “tresspassing” in the second sign and add it to kind in the first. While wondering whether the second sign banned a hair-exchange app, I’d also delete the extra f from proffessional  or get rid of the word entirely. I mean, who else works in a tailor shop? Amateurs? Hobbyists? Not for those prices they don’t.

Now if only these stores would shell out a little cash for some proffessionnall prooffrreadding.

Another Inconvenient Truth

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There are lots of “inconvenient truths” out there these days, one of which is this: “Convenience” and “convenient” are like the dinosaurs ten days after the asteroid hit. They’re still around, but they’re wobbling, as you see in these signs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So much to love here: “The Inconvenient,” for one, plus the capitalization. Also, the sign doesn’t tell where “The Other Location” is. I guess it’s in the “if you have to ask, you can’t afford to shop here” category.

Round two:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m trying to decide whether “sorry for inconvenient” is better than “The Inconvenient.” Also, the dash over the letter i is a nice touch.. But this one is the best:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Points in favor include the fact that it’s not “inconvenient store.” But this is a backlit, permanent, glass sign. Nobody thought to spellcheck “convenience”?

I’d write more, but it’s an inconvinience time.

Misteaks Were Made

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NYU, not you too! I took a noncredit course there recently, but the quality of the content and discussion sadly did not match this letter sent from New York University’s administration. Take a look:

If I “continuously check” my schedule, I’m on the ALBERT website 24/7. Is that what you demand of me, NYU? I’m interested in learning, but I have to protect my eyeballs. Now if you’d asked me to check my schedule “continually,” I could log on from time to time to see what’s new.

If I didn’t find proper usage at a university, why was I expecting correct spelling in a sign? Usually I resign myself to four or five errors per walk, and I normally don’t bother posting misspelled words. But this one’s an exception:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seen in a paint store so high-end that its rear touches the sky, the sign attempts to match vocabulary level to price. Notice “formulation” instead of “formula,” “master craftsman” (just one guy does it all), and “curated collection.” I’ve already written about the trend toward “curation” instead of, say, “selection” in a post entitled “Curation Nation” at http://www.grammarianinthecity.com/?p=1576, so I won’t bother snarking about that part of the sign. But if you’re paying top dollar for small batches in formulations by a master craftsman in a curated collection, shouldn’t somebody spell “intricately” right? Indeed, as I tried to type “intracately” just now, autocorrect kicked in. It’s actually hard to make a mistake with that word, but I guess if you’re on the “master” level, you can manage.

Next one is a sentence from a mystery novel:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m assuming the author meant “preyed.” As a writer myself, I know that errors endure no matter how many times I proofread. I also know that a few make it past the editor’s scrutiny. I’m posting this as a reminder to myself to be more careful. Which brings me to this headline in the NY Times:

 

 

I wanted to mock the Times for the circle of logic represented by “Failing to Succeed.” After all, what else could you fail at? But on the fourth or fifth reading (yes, I’m a little slow sometimes), I grasped the point. You can’t win outright, so you may as well compromise. This one is clever, not wrong. So in the spirit of compromise, I’ll continuously try to fail at success, pray on all wildlife (who could use a little help from heaven), and consider repainting the living room with a curated color.

Well, maybe not the curated paint. I have to have some standards, and I’m drawing the line at “intracate.”