Julie calls this “an exuberant plural.”

Happy Wednesday, Julie!

Meg would like to let us know about a cool post over on Serious Eats,  More Evidence That Trader Joe Paid Attention in Grammar Class, from which the delightful picture  below is taken.  It seems to me less to indicate the awesomeness of Trader Joe Corporate — which, I assume, authorized and paid for the original sign — than that of Trader Joe employees.  Nonetheless, it brings a tear to my eye.

Thanks, Meg!

Please excuse the drive-by nature of this photograph.  I was not actually driving while I took it, but I was being watched suspiciously by the shopclerk. And I really, really needed her not to ask me what I was doing…

…because if she had, I was going to say, “Excuse me, I was wondering whether I would like to buy a Radko ornament.”

Reporter #1 shrugs, “Stationary iPhones need not apply.”

I could have seen where they were going with this, if the software were called “Weight Watchers for Mobile.”  But it isn’t.  And so this is wrong.  Just like starting sentences with “And” or “But.”  But this is my blog.

As I have said before, I feel like there’s a line somewhere such that picking on people’s spelling/grammar isn’t appropriate if we’re dealing with certain subsets of people, among them those who are not native English speakers.  I have a little pity for companies producing things for export to English-speaking countries, because not all companies may be able to afford much in the way of translation, and I don’t know which companies could and which couldn’t.  That’s quite different from mom-and-pop, handwritten signs, though, which I am generally very likely to forgive.  It’s very likely that their English is better than my whatever, after all.

That said, I think I feel comfortable drawing the line when it comes to companies actually operating major stores in English-speaking countries.  If you are big enough to buy several major big-box stores in the United States, I really DO want you to hire a copy editor.  Mmmkay?

Don’t worry, H Mart, I’m not going to dump you over this.  I love you too much for such a petty thing to break us up.  Plus, I mean, public hygeine is a total plus!  Maybe we can work out some kind of deal where I do your corporate editing in return for a never-ending supply of mochi balls and bibimbop?

[EDIT TO ADD, CONFIDENTIAL TO MY FATHER: I originally had “I feel like there’s a line somewhere where picking on people’s blah blah.”  The voice that I heard in my head yelling at me there was definitely yours!]