Which day is the spelling bee?

I’m disturbed enough as it is that Applebee’s hosts a karaoke night, but could they at least spell it correctly?

The phantom apostrophe

It’s February 21st, which means I’m jealous of every government employee in the nation who doesn’t have to bother with going to work today. While they are (surely) still sleeping soundly, I am awake and should be getting ready to head to the office. Instead, I’m sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee and contemplating the ultimate question: Is it Presidents’ Day, President’s Day, or Presidents Day?

According to the dictionary, the correct way of writing it is Presidents’ Day, since it is meant to commemorate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Then again, the entry on dictionary.com (my source) also failed to capitalize George Washington’s name–first AND last–so they deserve very little credit.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (government website) lists the 2011 Federal Holidays; however, according to their calendar, February 21st is simply Washington’s Birthday instead of Presidents Day with any form of an apostrophe. In this case, it should be President’s Day if we’re only commemorating Washington.

Personally, I’ve always viewed February 21st as a day to honor multiple presidents. Having said that, I’m sure my day will be filled with Presidents’ Days, President’s Days, and Presidents Days alike. That phantom apostrophe just can’t seem to make up its mind.

Intelligence doesn’t come cheap

Dollar stores have some great bargains, but I was much more excited to stumble across these signs:

Sorry for the blurriness. (I’ll save you the headache: it reads, “Please not opened drinks or food in the store please thank you.”) I won’t even explain the various problems with this sign; if you can’t figure out what’s wrong with it, this whole blog is probably going to confuse the snot out of you.

The dollar store sells iodized salt, but they’d like you to believe it’s iodizes salt.

Strike FOUR for Dirty Harry’s

Your eyes do not deceive you; this is the fourth time I’ve caught Dirty Harry’s car wash in the act of illiteracy.

Before you see the image, I must offer an explanation. There was nowhere for me to park on this side of the sign to take a good picture, so once I did find a photography opportunity, I had to accept that there would be a pole making an appearance in the photo. Sorry. Poles are people, too (wait…….).

Having said that, you can clearly see on the sign that the word “clean” has been spelled incorrectly (or as I prefer to say, the spelling has been massacred).

At this point, I’m tempted to send an email to the owner of Dirty Harry’s and ask him/her if his/her child is in charge of the signs. But seriously, I’m taking a poll:

It takes only seconds to proofread this survey

I found this survey on a photo editing website. If the font was larger, someone may have caught the “its takes only seconds to answer below.”

Officer, I swear to drunk I’m not God

I spotted this sign when I drove past the business yesterday (and by “business,” I mean “bar”). I think someone had a few too many drinks before they changed the lettering on the sign.

What lesson can we take away from this? Don’t drink and sign.

The abused apostrophe: It’s baaaaaack!

I spent my whole evening at the mall, shopping for clothes but also shopping for potential blog-worthy material (i.e., abuse of proper English). Not only did I walk away with several new items of clothing, but I got a photograph of this as well:

I guess it’s fine if people are renting these strollers and placing their children directly into them. I just hope they aren’t letting these children read the instructions.

On the Soapbox #2: Craigslist

Craigslist is the ULTIMATE place to go to find an endless supply of grammatical and spelling errors. Here on my blog, I try to refrain from playing grammar police on things like forums and social media sites. Although poor grammar drives me nuts no matter what the source, I feel I can only legitimately post about the errors made by people who should know better. That’s why I typically pick on businesses and printed publications.

However…

In the “Rants and Raves” section of Craigslist, one thing people love to rant about is other posters’ terrible use of grammar, spelling, and syntax. Because I am a Grammar Nazi, I like to silently cheer them on in my head. The problem is, only a small fraction of these ranters use proper grammar, spelling, and syntax in their own posts.

Example 1: (Click to enlarge)

Let’s begin by examining this person’s example sentence: “I slept better than I did the night before.” When did you sleep better than the night before? And the night before when, exactly? Today? Yesterday? The 5th of December? My point: it’s not a complete sentence. What’s worse is the use of the word “witch” instead of “which.”

Example 2: (Click to enlarge)

I won’t even get into the painfully awful syntax of this post. But I got a good laugh out of the last sentence: “WRITING YOUR ENTIRE MESSAGE IN CAPS is annoying and just shows people your nuts.” Writing in caps exposes male genitalia? Yikes! (This is why we have apostrophes, people!)

Example 3: (As you’ve probably discovered by now, click to enlarge)

Aside from the racist remark that pushed my pissed-off button, there are two errors in this post that make the high-and-mighty poster look like an idiot. “There’s lots of carbs” and “there’s no taxes” are wrong, wrong, wrong. “There are lots of carbs” and “there are no taxes”? Much better!

If you want to criticize someone’s grammar, then go nuts. It’s your right to do so. But please, PLEASE, for my sanity and the sanity of other true grammar freaks: USE PROPER GRAMMAR when ranting about poor grammar. (Oh dear, I wrote in all caps for part of that sentence. Are my nuts showing? 😉 )

Some sleep would probably help

Budget Inn’s budget must be too tight to hire someone who knows how to use proper English. Not only does the use of the word “nite” in place of “night” irk me to no end (is it really that efficient to use four letters instead of five?), but it should be pluralized and it’s not. I’m also not sure what a “weely” rate would be, but I hope it’s cheaper than the “weekly” rate.

Not very comforting

Dry cleaning business spelled “comforter” incorrectly: