Colleen found this at the Dollar Tree, and admits she shouldn’t really be surprised.
Okay, I’m confused. What the? Yeah, yeah, I see the typo, but what is this? Is it a sign sold to children with siblings named Bill? Does it go on your mailbox and address anthropomorphized letters? What will this artifact tell future civilizations about us when they dig it up completely intact from the landfill?
Thanks for a fun week, Colleen!
It’s more Colleen!!
(What were you doing, Colleen, sitting on these until I insulted you? Or did you just run out and photograph everything as soon as I praised Kacia? Sheesh.)
Colleen says she’d never send her kids to this school. But I wonder if they wouldn’t actually get a good early education in legal precision. Clearly, the owners don’t want you suing when they duck tape your children to their desks, let them watch television all day, and then march them home under the maple trees.
Bonus points for the shot from the car!
Kicking off a full week of submissions from GrammarTroika sister #1, we have something that will make you hungry. Or nauseate you. You pick!
Colleen notes,
Apparently Jack in the Box “requirs” I.D. for certain transactions. This is one label, so not one of those situations where the letter fell off. Someone actually typed it this way, read it and thought “nailed it,” before posting to the menu board.
I also appreciate the redundancy & incorrect abbreviation of $15.00 DLS. Fifteen dollars dollars, y’all!
I’m with you on both counts, Colleen.
Personally, I’m also hung up on the fact that this signage very clearly informs me that Jack in the Box requires ID before you can purchase bacon cheddar fries. Maybe not a bad idea!
Colleen (yep, again) says this is one of her pet peeves. This error falls cleanly into the “if it has more syllables, it makes me sound more educated” school of word-selection, and… yeah.
This error is one that I heard DAILY in my former workplace. Employees would regularly talk about “servicing” students, when they meant “serving” students. I was on a one woman crusade to eradicate phase. Why? First there is the connotation of the phrase “servicing our students.” Squick*. Then there is the cold hard grammar:
Servicing: present participle of serv·ice1. Perform routine maintenance or repair work on (a vehicle or machine).2.Supply and maintain systems for public utilities and transportation and communications in (an area): “the town is small but well serviced”.Serv·ing1. The act of one that serves.
That’s the subject line of an e-mail I received last night from my father. And he was not wrong! Below please find my mother’s birthday cake.
First of all, my mother’s name is Helen.
…Just kidding. Her name is actually Marjorie. But that is not how you spell Marjorie.
I love thinking of my parents opening the box and thinking, “Quick, go get the camera! We have to send this to Alden!”
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?
FINALLY, an RPB contributor who gets what’s actually required of the RPB lifestyle. From Shannon M.:
The Baltimore Grand Prix had lots of display booths for companies that make fast cars. Chevrolet had a Corvette exhibit, featuring a ZR-1. Sadly, it had this sign on it, so they won’t be getting my $100,000. It’d go against my principles.
Shannon, as you may know, it’s been a longstanding dream of my husband’s to own a Corvette. He’d probably tell you it was a pre-dating stipulation, actually. I’ve been resisting on the grounds that he wants a yellow one and yellow is clearly gross. I mean, if he were into something that came with metallic flake we could talk, because who doesn’t want to drop $100k on a car? But yellow, no thanks.
Dear Husband hasn’t been totally persuaded by my anti-yellow argument, though. So the greater gift you’ve given me today, Shannon, is an absolutely indisputable reason to put that particular purchase off for another couple of decades!
Also, RPBers who have been hesitant to submit, embarrassed to photograph, and otherwise generally too timid, take note. Shannon is giving up his Corvette for the cause. That’s how it’s done.
UPDATE: My father correctly points out that I have misspelled the great Yul’s last name. In the process of correcting this mistake I have also discovered that the video to which I linked has been taken down. So I’ve linked to another one, which is really worth viewing. Ignore the incorrect lyrics and enjoy the genius.
============
Julie noticed something about this charming new Bic product, as described by Amazon. I’d seen the product, because it’s kind of been meme-ified — fortunately, its fame seems to be due to a general recognition of the total stupidity at work here. (And also, the product reviews are awesome.)
I put some red arrows to help you move past the vomitousness and see the [typographic] error. You’re welcome.
$5 says the copywriter here put “women’s,” and then was all “Whoa, is it ‘women’s hands’ or ‘women’s hand’? Or even ‘womens’ hand’s? WHO KNOWS SCREW IT” and went with (or intended to go with) “a woman’s hand.”
Anyway, as Julie acknowledged, the typo is “by no means the wrongest thing about this product.” That’s for sure. I mean, I very clearly remember the etiquette class on ink. A lady doesn’t write by hand in black ink in this day and age, because doing so might lead to confusion about whether she hand-wrote her correspondence or printed/photocopied it. Of course, now that I think about it, that advice was probably given to me before color printers became common, and is probably irrelevant now, and now I’m going to have Yul Brenner Brynner stuck in my head all day again.
Oh, wait, the actual other errors: “cristal” is not a thing, and also, you know, misogyny. Where’s Sarah Haskins when we need her?
Okay, Kacia is rapidly becoming Reporter #2! (That’s a challenge issued, Colleen. And Dad. Just saying.)
Kacia found this one on the Facebooks. I’m tagging Facebook posts now because Facebook is its own cesspool of typographic awful. You’re welcome.
Again, I’m distracted by the good in this post. I guess I’m just in an optimistic place recently! I’m just excited by that comma after “that.” I’m fantasizing that there was a matching comma at the other end. Leave me alone, it’s only my Tuesday.
(In other good news, the group in question appears to have either ceased to exist or have come to its senses, as I can’t find it on Facebook. Kacia, if you’re a member and know where they went, sent the info and I’ll linkify.)
Kacia’s baaaaaack!
I know there’s things wrong with my synapses, y’all, but this sign actually just makes me feel grateful that the sign-creators didn’t make the Verizon Math error, which I see all the time. Yes, “ouce” could also look a lot like “ooze,” but I’m just glad they didn’t say “$.79 cents.”