BRAINS!

Written By: admin - Nov• 28•11

Lisa R. submitted this one without comment.

I totally get that what we’re looking for here is “a zombie.” But I’m a bit distracted by all my other questions. What is this sign? Is it an ad? For what awesome thing?

Also, why wouldn’t you want to be a zombie twice? I mean, obviously the living don’t typically want to be the living dead. But if you already are one, is there a particular reason you wouldn’t want to come back in that form again? Maybe if you’re the slow-moving, stiff-armed kind of zombie instead of the kind that can play video games and have a non-demanding career. Is that what this sign is going for? Some kind of zombie hierarchy?

Posted in subject/verb and structure, words & syntax | 3 Comments »

dies Grammar rant dies again

Written By: admin - Nov• 23•11

First! Here is a picture of a bunny chillaxing — or not! — on a CozyWinters small animal heating pad!

That’s the first thing you’ll see on this page,which is apparently where Lisa S. buys nice things for her residents. And I say “residents” and not “pets” deliberately, because Lisa runs the Atlanta Metro Guinea Pig Rescue, which is always in need of spare cozy things (and spare money) if you have any of the above lying around. [Please note too that Lisa did NOT ask for this shameless plug, but I’m doing it anyway, because I have a soapbox and I can.]

Anyway, disapproving rabbits aside, Lisa thinks the real hilarity occurs a little further down in the text:

I will admit that I was so amused by “mammal animals” (now added to my mental list of awesome band names!) that I totally missed the “attended” and “reptiltes,” not to mention some peculiar capitalization and debatable punctuation. PLUS cute bunny. This is an RPB Good Day.

Posted in capitalization, misspellings & new words, other punctuation mistakes, punctuation, words & syntax | No Comments »

We are not alone.

Written By: admin - Nov• 21•11

Reporter #1 is vigilant. And sometimes vigilance is lonely. Ask Batman. Once upon a time his world was Technicolor-ful, and he hung out with Robin, and he had all those women hitting on Man of Leisure Bruce Wayne. And now he’s all dark and broody and I mean yes the Joker is creepy but you also have to admit that Batman is really serious.

Which is why it’s nice when we hear the occasional voice in the dark.

Reporter #1 apparently got all teary when she found this in her workplace. I don’t judge her tears. We all need to express ourselves more. Except for people who can’t tell the difference between “effect” and “affect.” They shouldn’t.

———

NB: Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! More post-y goodness after the holiday weekend. I mean, *I* will be at work as normal this week, but I assume most of my mysterious non-commenting readers won’t, so… see you Monday. 🙂

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

Picking a fight?

Written By: admin - Nov• 18•11

Colleen apparently would like to observe a lively debate in my comments. (Actually, so would I, but it would appear that y’all are just not comment-inclined, although my software tells me you are reading SO WHY WON’T YOU COMMENT GOOD GRIEF HELP A BLOGGER OUT WITH HER SITE STATS WOULD YOU PLEASE?)

Ahem. Sorry, Colleen, back to your pot-stirring. The question comes in relation to this Brown Paper Tickets ad:

Here is a lively debate starter… Should it be “who” or “that”? I know this issue is murky and divisive. My two cents? Who= people, that=inanimate. But then is this people as a group, thus making “that” correct?

Actually, I don’t think this is even that divisive. My ruling: WRONG. Anybody want to argue? (Please?)

Posted in subject/verb and structure, words & syntax | 5 Comments »

Insufficiency.

Written By: admin - Nov• 16•11

Sometimes, even rules don’t make things better.

Chris H. says his wife found this and thought of us. Thank you, Chris’s wife! For thinking of us, at least. I can’t really thank the universe for pointing out that even correctly-followed rules and conventions can sometimes fail to provide clarity. Sigh.

Posted in other punctuation mistakes, punctuation | No Comments »

It’s Tuesday, let’s do a flashback. Also: Hi, Dad!

Written By: admin - Nov• 15•11

So Dragon*Con happened a couple of months ago, but I haven’t cleaned off my phone’s photo directory in a while, and I just remembered I had these.

Let’s set the scene. Dragon*Con, for the uninitiated, is more like eleventeen different science-fiction and fantasy conventions at once. There’s something for everyone, and for people with very short attention spans (like me!) there can be eleventeen somethings going on at once! So I kept pretty busy.

I tracked down Jen (of EPBOT and CakeWrecks) in her now-annual Find Jen! contest and won a super-rare Carrot Jockey necklace:

Oh look who I also tracked down totally by accident, is James Marsters. You’ll just have to trust me that the person he’s hugging (because we are BFFs!) is me. Also, I’m wearing a Dingoes Ate My Baby t-shirt, for those of you who care about that sort of thing.

Then I went to the most fabulous sing-along of Once More With Feeling and Dr. Horrible, back to back… pretty sure I was the most sober person in the entire ginormous room.

Where DO they go from here?

And yes, they had the signs of awfulness up all over again this year. But this year, there was also this sign, which helped balance things out, because AWESOME:

And just feet away, I found this evidence of an honorary RPB-er, out there in the masses!

But then… alas. There was this. I know some of y’all will probably not gnash your teeth quite as hard as I will at this. But can we at least agree that this is a debatable point of spelling and that it does not merit the defacement of a kick-ass poster?

HONORARY RPB FAIL.

—————-

Confidential to my father: THERE YOU GO DAD, ARE YOU HAPPY? 😛

Posted in honorary RPB member!, just for fun, misspellings & new words, words & syntax | 2 Comments »

Or DOES it…?

Written By: admin - Nov• 04•11

First, observe the ridiculous punctuation.

Now let’s let Kacia explain why this is extra-silly.

[This is a] warning sticker pasted onto the bottom of a can of mock abalone from our local Asian grocery. Note that the entire ingredient list printed on the can is ‘Fried gluten (wheat, soy bean oil), salt, sugar, soy sauce (soy bean, wheat, water, salt), soy bean oil.’ Yet somehow from that we hopeless consumers would be unable to determine that this product contains wheat and soybeans. Unless… “wheat” and “soybeans” is warning us of additional ingredients so unmentionable that we must employ euphemisms rather than speak of them! Horrors!

It’s PEOPLE, Kacia!!

Posted in "quotations", just wrong, punctuation | No Comments »

Explain-y.

Written By: admin - Nov• 02•11

To draw attention to this jack so emergency responders know where it is, you’d want “Firefighters: telephone.” Or, you know, something less stilted, but approximately that.

To explain what this hole is to the average bystander so they don’t stick a pencil in it, you’d want “firefighters’ telephone” or even “firefighters’ telephone jack,” just to make it really clear.

While I’ll concede that perhaps not everybody needs “firefighter” to be a single word (although a quick Google shows me that many actual fire departments agree with me), this is at least bizarre, and probably incorrectly punctuated.

Thanks, Reporter #1!

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

JUST SAY NO

Written By: admin - Oct• 21•11

…to using words if you don’t actually know what they mean. Mmkay? Yes, “courtesy” is actually sort of tangentially related to this conversation. But you’re really not doing something “for the courtesy of others.”

Thanks, Dad!

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

Actual red pen used!

Written By: admin - Oct• 19•11

Yet another Washington Post oops brought to you by Dave S.

Nice job wielding the red pen, yo.