Crunchy, delicious apostrophe mutilation, and braaaaaaaains

Written By: admin - Aug• 20•12

Colleen cheerfully wrote, “A little Etsy find for you!”

Yiiiiikes. To me, the “yikes” is more about the conviction with which this is written. I will admit — nay, I willofferthe fact preemptively — that I am not good at spelling. There are a lot of words I have to stop and think about. I even replay grammar rules in my mind now and then. And sometimes, when I’m writing and I’m feeling lazy and I’m not sure of something?I don’t use that something. That’s right… I find another way to arrange things such that I don’t have to invest any further energy in determining the correct spelling or usage.

What I don’t do is blithely go ahead when I’m not sure.

I mean, they could have gone with “pizza,” you know?

And speaking of “taco’s” on Etsy — or rather a singular taco with no egregious apostrophe abuse — I am seriously attracted to the taco below.

(You can click either picture to go to the respective stores, if you find yourself in need of shabby chic housewares or crocheted zombie food. Yes, there’s zombie pizza too.)

RPB gets COMPETITIVE

Written By: admin - Aug• 15•12

Y’all, RPB is contagious. It’s a fever. And the only prescription… is more cowbell.

Er, I mean, having your submission posted, so that you’re not the only one of your siblings who has yet to be anointed by the RPB.

This is why I am ignoring my personal rule of thumb and posting an email. Because I have to, y’all. You see, Heather is the only one of three sisters who has not yet been published here! We have to fiiiiix iiiiiit.

I wonder if Gigatent asks its prospective employees for resume’s?

Thanks for the submission, Heather, and welcome to the club. 🙂

Uh… Candygram.

On Bewilderments of the Eyes and other things Cave-related

Written By: admin - Aug• 13•12

For some reason I cannot fathom, a goodly number of my contributors and readers share an alma mater, which appears to be a fairly selective liberal arts college somewhere in the American wilderness. As such we’ve already had a couple of submissions featuring signage from (or about) that institution.

Apparently this lovely school has a pub-like music venue called The Cave, located in the basement a of a truly beautiful old building which has come, over the years, to have a permanent and no longer truly subtle Odeur de Party. Once upon a time this dorm was for ladies only, and it was named after an alumna whose last name was Evans.

The good news, I guess, is that Evans is being renovated, which will mean that future reunion-goers who stay there will not have to relive their college years quite as viscerally.

The bad news is self-evident.

Thanks, Jessica!

(Again, first poster with the source citation gets 10 RPB points.)

Reporter #1 Goes On Vacation

Written By: admin - Aug• 10•12

As always, I can mostly leave this post up to Reporter #1 herself. First, a picture from Johnston Ridge Observatory at Mt. St. Helens.

The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hoorah. The ants go marching one by one, hoorah, hoorah! The ants go marching one by one until the side of their mountain fell down and then it erupted in a way that geologists and vulcanologists had totally not anticipated, leading to the loss of 57 lives and the biggest landslide ever recorded. So that’s why there’s a monumant.

Actually, Reporter #1, you might be having too much fun with this.

I got nothing. I’m just sad.

That’s more like it.

I got things! Sorry, thing’s. My favorite is the list of good and bad attributes at the bottom, which lead me to believe that this workplace would be approximately my personal nightmare. Also, Manager who likes to Give Direction, Randomly Capitalize, and Never Let Your Employees Take Breaks? “Unlike” is not the word you wanted. Ahem.

I don’t need no stinking comments.

Written By: admin - Aug• 08•12

My husband and I have a funny story, in that way couples have stories that have become funny through time and retelling. It’s not about us, of course, but a completely hypothetical couple who isn’t us.

At the time our story takes place, one half of the couple — let’s call that half Apple — was in school and writing a lot of papers, including frequent use of fairly specialized terminology. Making a perfectly reasonable decision, Apple decided to turn off the spell-check feature on the word processing program, lest the squiggly red lines take over the screen entirely.

Unbeknownst to Apple, her partner — we’ll call the partner Bacon — was planning a special gift. Not being an intuitive Red Pen Brigade sort of person, Bacon used the word processor to check the spelling of some words to be engraved on Apple’s shiny new item. Not seeing any squiggly red lines, Bacon happily went off and had a typo engraved on the gift (that’s right… the engraver also didn’t catch the mistake).

Obviously, this not-us story is hilarious, which is why when we find ourselves recounting it, for one reason or another, we totally don’t end up having a disagreement about whether unilaterally turning off the spell-check is a good idea. ANYWAY.

I have a point here, and it has to do with this lovely submission from Ernie.

My point is: this sign was typed. On some sort of digital device connected to a printer. In this day and age.

I choose to believe that the sign author’s spouse/partner/office-mate is a scholar majoring in something with a lot of jargon, like neurobiochemistry. (Squiggly red line!) It doesn’t exactly excuse the author’s spelling decisions, but at least it is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why they weren’t fixed.

(Thanks, Ernie!)

Reporter #1’s new guidebook!

Written By: admin - Jul• 02•12

Okay, this isn’t a done deal, but I’m pitching it here and now. It’ll be irreverent, hip, young — and all about the best typos in Buffalo!

First among the many fine places you must visit in Buffalo is the Buffalo Zoo, where members are only appreciated two nights a year. Or three, or six. It’s tough to tell, but it’s obviously not very many nights.

If you’re sticking around Buffalo for a while and have children, do make sure you check out the summer reading program, focusing on the consumption of writing without being particular about punctuation.

On the other hand, maybe Reporter #1 is limiting herself geographically a bit too soon.

Link, in the vain hope that they’ll see this and FIIIIX IIIIIT.

I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.

Written By: admin - Jun• 29•12

Other than that, there’s not much to say about this one, which appeared on Reporter #1’s Facebook feed.

Eeeeeeeee this one is like fingernails and chalkboards. (Youngsters: chalkboards were the whiteboards of my day, and uphill both ways in the snow.)

Ugh. After a frisson of horror like that, we clearly need a break full of geeky bromance. You’re welcome.

I mean, I want to put a comma before “Losers” there, but in that instance the awesome outweighs the punctuation issues.

Somebody call Hank Hill: “That’s a $50 fine after I report it.”

Written By: admin - Jun• 20•12

It’s Wednesday! And I’m no longer working overnight shift! So, uh, hi. And here’s a post!

————

Reporter #1 includes the important information that this construction site is the same one that features danger lasers.

I want to go to there, y’all. The place is obviously happening.

Something in my brain is broken.

Written By: admin - Apr• 14•12

Happy Friday! In my head, it’s Friday, because I got to work on Friday, even if an hour later it was Saturday. Clearly I’m not normal. So perhaps that’s why I’m unimpressed by Hollywood’s new belief that trailers generating excitement for trailers makes sense! Whatever.  Today, the (actual) trailer for Looper was released, and as far as Google allows me to tell it’s impressed its target audience.  Ooo, did you see how I used both “it’s” and “its,” which are different words with different meanings, in that sentence?  Good, it was warm-up exercise for this.

Time travel? Joseph Gordon-Levitt growing up into Bruce Willis? Okay, I’m on board. I’m all about suspension of disbelief. But I can’t QUITE shake the suspicion that what they wanted here was “loopers’ guns,” since we know there are “many” loopers and since the one we see depositing a gun is, well, only depositing A gun.

PLEASE TELL ME THAT IN THE FUTURE YOU GET TIME-TRAVEL-ASSASSINATED FOR ABUSING APOSTROPHES.

Oh hai Sony. You have me a mite worried.

I’m KVELLING. (Look it up.)

Written By: admin - Mar• 29•12

Seriously, I don’t use Yiddish often, but there is no better word for what this little story from Reporter #1 did to me.  Tweaked only to change the kid’s name, because she deserves better than to be a minimized version of her mom. 😛

This evening, Reporter #1’s 8-year-old  7-and-a-half-year-old (sorry! I do words, not math!), CubReporter, bellowed from the bathroom while she was brushing her teeth.

CubReporter: MOOMMMMMMMM!
R#1: What?
CubReporter: There’s a mistake on my toothpaste.
R#1: What’s the mistake?
CubReporter: It says “kid’s toothpaste” with an apostrophe.
R#1:  Yes, it does.
CubReporter: They made it a possessive noun.
R#1: Well, doesn’t it belong to you?
When she finished brushing her teeth, she came back to our room…
CubReporter: But it could belong to more than one kid!
R#1: Do you know how you would make it a plural possessive?
CubReporter: No.
R#1: Well, how do you make “kid” plural?
CubReporter: Make it “kids”.
R#1: And then where do you put the apostrophe?
CubReporter: *shrug*
R#1: On the end, after the “s”. And high five for your very first* submission to Red Pen Brigade.

Are you not just DYING? I have been waiting for this day since, well, since August 25 of 2009.  And yes, this error is all over Crest’s website, too.

*Of course I also have to point out that while this might have been the first error she identified herself, this is actually not CubReporter’s first appearance on this blog, as both her lovely mug and her less-lovely ceramic mug appeared here in January of last year.

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