punctuation «

The burgers look good, but that’s about it.

Written By: admin - Oct• 24•12

Apparently, USA Today ranked this place’s burger #1 in Minnesota. But Kacia would like to give them a thumbs-down on punctuation. She’s also frustrated that “rootbeer” is one word.

Obviously Messrs Casper and Runyon subscribe to the apostrophe-after-a-vowel school of apostrophe usage, as they haven’t bothered using one in “floats” or “malts.” But as we all know, this school of thought is WRONG.

As for “rootbeer”? Well, the squiggly red line is telling me that’s wrong. But funnily enough, it doesn’t upset my stomach. In fact I find it far more disquieting to stop and think about root beer being made out of roots. It’s kind of like mincemeat: one of those words you just shouldn’t over-analyze. But technically, you’re right, Kacia, it’s two strikes. Let’s hope the burger wasn’t a third!

Posted in apostrophes, misspellings & new words, punctuation, words & syntax | No Comments »

“Just kidding”

Written By: admin - Oct• 22•12

GrammarTroika Sister #2 is back in the game with this label from her daughter’s prescription. Apparently Walgreens isn’t sure this is a legal name.

I’ve only ever seen this on prescriptions for animals before — and even then, it has always driven me crazy. My pets have names, and those names are their real names. I always supposed that it was a legal thing, so pharmacies could distinguish between their human and non-human patients. But Skylar is definitely human; I’ve seen pictures of her. So this is kind of puzzling!

Thanks, Shannon!

Posted in "quotations", punctuation | 1 Comment »

The couple that uses parallel constructions properly… uh, wins together?

Written By: admin - Oct• 03•12

Two orders of business before we get down to red-penning.

One, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! <insert singing, including joyful dog joining-in, here>

Ahem. Okay. Two: a warning. It seems that Colleen — otherwise known as GrammarTroika sister #1 — took my title-offering threat seriously and has stepped up her submission rate. So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a bunch of stuff from her, y’all!

Colleen’s not just bringing the quantity, she’s got quality in the mix too. Check this one out.

We do have a clear error here, I’d argue: “Women Rights” is just not okay no matter how I parse it. But I think I can see how they got there. For whatever reason, I’m okay with “Patient Rights,” and you wouldn’t want to go sticking an apostrophe-s on “women” when you don’t have one on “patient.” The balance of the sign would be all wonky. You follow? My CDO (it’s OCD, in the correct alphabetical order!) tendencies are grateful.

On the other hand, they did decide to go with what I assume is a resume point (“charitable org. president”) as a parallel to an imperative verb statement (“remove corrupt politicans”). Which is way more unwieldy than that neglected apostrophe would have been.

I’m not going to imply that these… interesting choices cost Major and Mrs. Shah the election. I’m just saying. You know?

Posted in apostrophes, punctuation, subject/verb and structure, words & syntax | No Comments »

And other things.

Written By: admin - Sep• 26•12

Kacia took an online survey asking her if she had done a variety of things recently. Eventually she encountered this question.

Kacia says “Why they felt the need to write ‘etc.’ with quotation marks (and without a period) I will never know.” But I think we’ve seen this before. I think it’s the “Yikes, I don’t know how to do this” phenomenon, and in this case the guess almost makes more sense than other arbitrary punctuation-panic mistakes. This one is more like saying “You know that word that means ‘and so forth’? That’s the word I’m intending to put here and I know it’s sort of like ‘etc’ but that might not be exactly right.”

Still wrong, though.

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Let Wegmans make you laugh today!

Written By: admin - Sep• 24•12

Reporter #1 says,

Wegmans might be the reason Mama Baldwin can’t be persuaded to leave New York, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use apostrophes properly.

Okay, don’t hate me, Yankees, but this is absolutely the first I’ve heard of Wegmans, or of the apparently controversial on-again, off-again relationship with Alec Baldwin and his mother. Being who I am, my first concern about this entity was where it got its name. “Wegmans” sets off certain bells in my head, you know? The apostrophe-related bells.

But apparently the chain was founded by two brothers Wegman. So they’re okay on that point. I mean, they would have gotten major extra punctuation points for having gone with a terminal apostrophe — or alternatively they could have gone for major humor points with “Wegmen”! But that might be asking too much. We shall just be glad they’re not committing blatant apostrophe discrimination with their very existence.

That said, my personal giggle came from Reporter #1, who added

Also, do you know how hard it is to get the Wegmans bathroom to yourself so you don’t have to explain why you’re taking pictures of the sign on the diaper stand?

Guys, joining the RPB is nothing of which to be ashamed. Go forth and photograph proudly!

Posted in apostrophes, punctuation | 1 Comment »

More small favors!

Written By: admin - Sep• 21•12

Okay, Kacia is rapidly becoming Reporter #2! (That’s a challenge issued, Colleen. And Dad. Just saying.)

Kacia found this one on the Facebooks. I’m tagging Facebook posts now because Facebook is its own cesspool of typographic awful. You’re welcome.

Again, I’m distracted by the good in this post. I guess I’m just in an optimistic place recently! I’m just excited by that comma after “that.” I’m fantasizing that there was a matching comma at the other end. Leave me alone, it’s only my Tuesday.

(In other good news, the group in question appears to have either ceased to exist or have come to its senses, as I can’t find it on Facebook. Kacia, if you’re a member and know where they went, sent the info and I’ll linkify.)

Posted in apostrophes, punctuation, subject/verb and structure, words & syntax , facebook | 1 Comment »

Perhaps the rules of grammar are different among squirrel-kind?

Written By: admin - Sep• 12•12

It’s that time of year again, ladies and gents: time for Kacia to monitor the Minnesota State Fair for RPB submissions!

As Kacia noted in her email, this is actually a really nicely made birdhouse. And as anybody who has ever interacted with squirrels knows, the warning is definitely appropriate. It’s the driving force behind so many fabulous inventions (check out the videos for the Whipper, Tipper, and Flipper at Droll Yankees if you don’t believe me).

I’m just concerned that a particularly well-educated squirrel might look at this and say “No squirrel is allowed in there? Clearly the owner of this home was concerned about squirrel-y solitude, as multiple squirrels are welcome. SQUIRREL HOUSE PARTY!”

And as we all know, squirrel house parties are a really bad idea.

Thanks, Kacia!

Posted in apostrophes, punctuation | No Comments »

We take your point, but we’re still going to judge.

Written By: admin - Sep• 10•12

GrammarTroika sister #2, Shannon, saw this on her Facebook feed and sent it in with the cheerful comment “Hey, if YOU’RE happy together, F- the English language!”

I’m with you, Shannon, you know I am. But I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get super-positive feedback from your friend, you know?

Also, yes, “GrammarTroika” is a thing now. Also also, don’t click on the picture and view that Tumblr if you value your grammar-sanity. Let’s just say this is not the only picture that merits red ink.

Posted in apostrophes, homophone mishaps, punctuation, words & syntax | No Comments »

RPB Code of Operations

Written By: admin - Aug• 29•12

Colleen, we talked about this earlier this week. You can’t just go around assuming these mistakes are mistakes. I mean, this person could well have been in business for only 3 years — or for 40. You don’t know unless you ask. (And if you asked, you clearly need to tell us about it.)

Also, while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about this little message:

I debated not sending it because the gal working there was so sweet. Alas, my hatred of quotation marks as emphasis overrides any sweetness.

DEMERITS! Good grief. Hesitation? What?!

Posted in "quotations", punctuation | No Comments »

Good news, bad news.

Written By: admin - Aug• 24•12

The good news: it’s Friday. (For YOU, that is.)

The bad news? All of this crap.

You know, I joke about defacing things, and the whole red pen thing. But I don’t DO it very often. In this case, though, I really don’t think I could have helped myself. It’s chalk, so correcting it wouldn’t even have been very costly to the sign-owner. So I would have corrected it, informed the sign-owner that s/he had personally ruined my weekend, and then cried quietly into my meatball’s.

Please tell me that’s how it went down, Lisa?