I've blogged before about my husband Mel and my high-school friend who like to go around changing signs when store owners aren't around. Another high-school friend sent me this article (at the bottom of post) from the Washington Post to warn Mel to curb the sign changing when he's next in the US. My friend had recently sent me the following amusing e-mail on this very subject:
In the Kroger store where I shop, the bakery section put up a cheery sign advertising bread specials that reads, "Help! We Baked To Much!" I could stand it no longer, so a few weeks ago I took a Sharpie pen and added the missing "o" to "to." It's still there, but I bet the store manager is gonna come after me soon...you reckon? I'll write you from prison if so...
Original article below:
Typo fixers get probation for damaging rare sign
The Associated Press
Friday, August 22, 2008; 1:56 PM
PHOENIX -- When it comes to marking up historic signs, good grammar is a bad defense.
Two self-styled vigilantes against typos who defaced a more than 60-year-old, hand painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year.
Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson pleaded guilty Aug. 11 for the damage done March 28 at the park's Desert View Watchtower. The sign was made by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, the architect who designed the rustic 1930s watchtower and other Grand Canyon-area landmarks.
Deck and Herson, both 28, toured the United States this spring, wiping out errors on government and private signs. They were interviewed by NPR and the Chicago Tribune, which called them "a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation.
An affidavit by National Park Service agent Christopher A. Smith said investigators learned of the vandalism from an Internet site operated by Deck on behalf of the Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL.
Authorities said a diary written by Deck reported that while visiting the watchtower, he and Herson "discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, contained a few errors."
The fiberboard sign has yellow lettering with a black background. Deck wrote that they used a marker to cover an erroneous apostrophe, put the apostrophe in its proper place with white-out and added a comma.
The misspelled word "emense" was not fixed, Deck wrote, because "I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. ... Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight."
Monday, 1 September 2008
An emense spelling error
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7 comments:
I say let's run Deck and Herson as Independent candidates for President and VP! What brave fellows. Heroes of the first order. People who can't spell, and don't know how to use a dictionary when in doubt, who are incapable of placing punctuation marks correctly, should certainly not be allowed to paint official signs...or write for newspapers...or even send e-mails! Shoot 'em, I say.
I am totally in agreement! What is with people and how do they get out of school and live everyday out in the world without knowing these simple things?
I used to walk past a mattress shop that had a sign *inside* the window that said: We will meat or beat any price!
Ha ha, Lisa, that made me laff out loud. We will 'meat or beat' -- oh dear, our educational standards these days....
I am a cookbook-a-holic, own far too many, and read them the way some read mystery novels. And indeed, there is often mystery in them...I can't tell you how often I've seen "veal piccata" mispelled as "picatta" and "picotta." And "avacado" seems to be gaining in popularity as an alternative. Once I came across "mynastry" (?); reading the recipe, I saw that the writer meant "minestrone." And of course, when making apple pie, you must first "peal" the apples.
Another thing I see ALL the time (and I mean in "real" publications, not just our pathetic local press) is a confusion about "pedal" and "peddle." I mean, does the writer wish to indicate that his subject is riding a bike, or selling it?
(...warming to the topic...)
And Eliz, who can ever forget the charming roadside vendor in our home town who offered delicious garden produce: Fresh Spinch" and Ripe Tommatoes?" But his finest hour was one summer when he (or she, or maybe their young child?) painted a big sign saying "Ice Cold Waterlons!" I mean---a whole syllable, just---forgotten! I widh I'd taken a photo of that...
...ooops. After all my ranting I forgot some quotation marks up there. I think I have waterlon on the brain...
Several years ago, a new, and very expensive, stone sign was ordered for the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
The sign read, "Texas State Cemetary."
You would think that if it was to be chiseled in stone, the craftsman, or somebody would have checked and double-checked the spelling!
After it was exposed in the paper, the sign was removed and a new one ordered.
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