Resign Lowell

Today was the day of the Red Sox victory parade through Boston. (Predictably, a ton of my co-workers called out. I worked. Sadly, my only experience with the parade was with the insane commute to work and drunken commute home.)

Reader Greg sent me this image. I’ve covered the topic enough times, but it’s timely and appropriate.

Careful with those signs!

Thanks, Greg.

Pre-emptive Strike!

My landlords, Rona and Dennis, are two of my blog’s biggest fans. Knowing that the Grammar Vandal is living right upstairs, they prepared their signs in advance.

There is now a very creepy-looking scarecrow lounging in a chair on our porch. Every time I walk up the stairs, I freak out a little bit, then realize that it’s not an actual person, and I walk on.

Check out his sign:

Location: Like Kate Would List Her Actual Address On Her Blog And Invite Stalkers To Her Home!, Somerville, MA

LOVE IT. LOVE IT. LOVE IT.

Never, ever use quotes where they don’t belong! Though, to be honest, I think I was a “trick or treater” myself during high school. I dressed up and went trolling for candy up until I was 17 years old. That’s too old — so if trick or treaters must be young, that would be a good reason to add the quotes.

Now, trick or treaters….hyphenated or not? I’m thinking that hyphens should be used.

Either way, excellent work on the sign.

Thanks, Rona and Dennis!

My apologies….

I’ve been getting a TON of spam in the comments over the past few days. Unfortunately, because of this, I have to word verification to the comment settings on this blog.

I know it’s annoying. I know it sucks. I hope it will only be temporary. We’ll see.

That picture is the first thing that comes up when you type in “spam” on Google Images. Since it’s Halloween weekend, it’s entirely appropriate!

I’m about to head out for the first of three nights of costumed madness. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I always try to do it up well. Wait until you see my costume!

This is sublime.

This is one of my favorite reader submissions ever. In fact, I love this so much, I think I’m going to mark it under “Best of the Blog.”

I know that there are a lot of people out there who adore Wal-Mart — one of my best friends, Alexa, is one of them. Personally, I’m ambivalent about them — the prices are great, but the stores are messy and they always have a weird smell. Like popcorn, but worse.

Anyway, reader Marimba sent me this gem of an image from Wal-Mart. This was emailed to him from a friend who got it from her sister who got it from a friend who got it from a former co-worker….

Here is what it said:

HI… Had to share this. IT’s real. From a former co-worker in one of The Commercial Appeal bureaus. Read the message below, then open the pic.

Check out this cake. Chad said they ordered it from Walmart and told them to write “Best Wishes Suzanne” and then underneath that “We will Miss You.”
Look at what they did.
All I have to say is stay in school.

This is beyond priceless. Thank you so much for sharing, Marimba. I love this!

In other news, I just received my first paycheck for creating educational grammar materials for a big company in Boston. I’ve been freelance editing for a while, but this one, in particular, means a lot to me. I’m happy.

Enjoy your Halloween weekend, everyone!

Shakin’ Up

Location: Wisconsin

I’ve never been to the Midwest, but my friend Lisa was just there, visiting her brother. She kept her eyes out for errors, and this one was just begging for an adhesive C.

Billy Cosby gets PWNED (sic)

After the discussion regarding Bill Cosby’s new book, Come On People, it turns out that you and I weren’t the only ones appalled (and disgusted) by the title.

Reader Brad sent me the following story from the Boston Globe:

COME ON, COS: Newspaper slotman and style maven Bill Walsh has a beef with Bill Cosby. “So Much for That Ed.D.,” he headlines his blog post on the title of Cosby’s new book, “Come On People.” Apparently the author, despite his graduate degree, “never learned about the comma of direct address,” Walsh writes (at theslot.blogspot.com); it really should be “Come On, People.”

Such minor goofs, some of them mistakes and others misguided design choices, are common enough in titles. Remember “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” and its missing hyphen? The short-lived sitcom “‘Til Death,” with its reversed apostrophe? And then there was “Two Weeks Notice,” the title that spurred punctuation stickler Lynne Truss to tote a felt-tip marker around town, correcting posters wherever she could.

Editors often fix these little glitches when the titles appear in print, either to follow “house style” or because alternative versions are circulating, so when I saw Cosby’s title in The New York Times last week, it had the requisite comma. For me, there was a different puzzle, one embedded in a Cosby witticism quoted by columnist Bob Herbert: “‘A word to the wise ain’t necessary,’ Mr. Cosby likes to say. ‘It’s the stupid ones who need the advice.”‘

Cosby is riffing, of course, on “A word to the wise is sufficient,” itself a translation of the Latin “verbum sapienti sat est.” When the maxim was better known, it was often shortened to verb. sap. or verb. sat. In English, too, it often appears in truncated form: “a word to the wise,” introducing a bit of advice, implies that the smart listener will take heed.

But here’s what’s weird: Cosby phrases his joke as if he were contradicting the original saying, when in fact he’s echoing it. “A word to the wise” doesn’t mean “ignore the dopes.” It means “a hint is enough for a smart person; it’s the stupid ones who need it spelled out.”

As sins against literacy go, these are surely small ones. But given his shape-up message, you’d think Cosby might be minding his maxims and tracking his commas more carefully.

Source

Word.

Thanks, Brad.

The Office: Whoever vs. Whomever

Ryan: What I really want — honestly, Michael — is for you to know it so you can communicate it to the people here, to your clients, to whomever.

Michael: Oh, okay…

Ryan: What?

Michael: It’s whoever, not whomever.

Ryan: No, it’s whomever…

Michael: No…whomever is never actually right.

Jim: Well, sometimes it’s right.

Creed: Michael is right. It’s a made-up word used to trick students.

Andy: No. Actually, whomever is the formal version of the word.

Oscar: Obviously, it’s a real word, but I don’t know when to use it correctly.

Michael (to the camera): Not a native speaker.

Kevin: I know what’s right, but I’m not gonna say because you’re all jerks who didn’t come see my band last night.

Ryan: Do you really know which one is correct?

Kevin: I don’t know.

Pam: It’s whom when it’s the object of the sentence and who when it’s the subject.

Phyllis: That sounds right.

Michael: Well, it sounds right, but is it?

Stanley: How did Ryan use it, as an object?

Ryan: As an object…

Kelly: Ryan used me as an object.

Stanley: Is he right about that?

Pam: How did he use it again?

Toby: It was…Ryan wanted Michael, the subject, to, uh explain the computer system, the subject–

Michael: Yes!

Toby: –to whomever, meaning us, the indirect object…which is the correct usage of the word.

Michael: No one asked you anything, ever, so whomever’s name is Toby, why don’t you take a letter opener and stick it into your skull?

LOVE THIS!

Thanks to Jess and everyone who told me I had to post this. I’ll be watching the actual episode later today.

A Grave Error

Back when my blog was in its nascent stage, even before I made it public, I took pictures of errors at Six Flags New England and posted them on here. (There were quite a few, and I guarantee it wasn’t creative advertising.) My friend Holly went to Six Flags on Sunday for Fright Fest, and she took a picture of an interesting gravestone:

Wow. Maybe one of the art directors decided to let his little nephew stencil a few gravestones and accidentally got them into the mix.

I just can’t get over the fact that not only is it wrong, but it alternatively uses both “you’re” and “your” to mean the contraction “you’re.”

I don’t think that the intention was to have it be wrong on purpose — every other gravestone is correct. Besides, if they meant for it to look wrong, wouldn’t they have done more things — mixed up words, spelled words incorrectly, written letters backwards — to make it look even worse?

Scientists have been saying it since the park opened, and I guess it’s true: riding Superman really does kill your brain cells. (For the record, I didn’t go on it for that very reason. I’ll fly through the Swiss Alps while strapped to a parachute, but I won’t go on a brain-damaging roller coaster like that.)

Photo Errors — and Apostrophes

Blogger has been a bit strange over the past few days, and I currently cannot post pictures.

Instead, here is something that’s been bothering me for a while.

I do a lot of work in Vegas, and it always drives me crazy whenever I send someone to Celine Dion or PURE Nightclub. Why? Because I inevitably have to type “Caesars Palace!”

There is no apostrophe.

It just hurts me to look at that!

I did a bit of digging, and I came across something that I didn’t expect:

Originally named Cabana Palace, then Desert Palace, the hotel officially opened its doors as Caesars Palace in 1966. The name change and design were decided upon to create a world where everyone could be treated as an emperor, a palace for all Caesars – hence no apostrophe in the name.

Source

Well, it this is the place for all Caesars, then shouldn’t it be Caesars’ Palace?

Or even Caesar Palace?

The first option would have been perfect; the second, mediocre but passable. And yet these Vegas executives chose to use the one incorrect form.

Not only that, but it seems like Emperors’ Palace is the name that they should have had. Caesar (and his progeny) were people who just happened to have the name Caesar, and who also happened to be emperors.

Their goal was for everyone to be an emperor, not for everyone to be Caesar!

This isn’t it. Another one that bothers me is Surfers Paradise, a beach resort in Queensland, Australia. It’s the same deal as Caesars Palace — they could have used an apostrophe, but no!

There’s another one, but I can’t think of it. Can you think of any others?

Get your mind out of the gutter!

Reader Bike Cop brought my attention to Bill Cosby’s newest book, which is in desperate need of a comma:

Sometimes I disgust myself.

That being said, this book reminds me of the sign that began my foray into grammar vandalism: “RUN EASY BOSTON.”

Thanks, Bike Cop.

For those of you missing dlipkin….

One of my most prolific commentators, dlipkin, hasn’t been on the blog lately, and for the greatest reason possible — he’s spending a few months touring the world with his girlfriend!

He just arrived in Singapore after some time in New Zealand. He just started writing in his blog, which you can check out here. There are some links to pictures, too. I hope he writes more — it’s great so far!

Hope you’re having a blast, Derek — and I hope to follow in your footsteps within a few years!

Evil People

Since starting this blog, I have had tons of people try to trip me up. I do relate to this comic.

This is ridiculous and deserves a post of its own.

Some discussion was had over the response Eric Jay posted on my last entry:

I’ve got several friends (and two immediate family members) who work in advertising and marketing. Most of them went to well-respected universities, and several hold degrees in both fine arts and business.

According to the two I spoke with about this entry, using words outside of their grammatically correct context is part of their art form. They each showed me examples from their own portfolios, pointing out words or punctuation that would have been different if they were writing a letter or article. In each case, there was an explanation of how the “incorrect” usage fit the project at hand.

They suspected whoever designed the LNT sign knows the grammatical difference between “every day” and “everyday,” and made the choice to use the “wrong” word in an effort to utilize both meanings in just 3 words: (1) You can find low prices here every day. (2) At LNT, low prices are an everyday occurrence.

They also both interpreted the Staples piece to be an imperative first, and a clever play on the phrase “picture perfect” second.

This blows my mind.

I’m not mad at Eric Jay — he’s one of my favorite readers. My beef, as usual, is with the marketing people. If this is true, what gives them the right to change the rules of grammar, to fill their signs with errors for the sake of subliminal advertising?

It would be different if it were a homophone with two very different meanings. If an ad for a fragrance said, “Good knight,” and had a sexy knight in shining armor (preferably shirtless and glistening with sweat, and curly hair, kind of wild, and just a bit of stubble, and amazing, well-developed arms….I’m sorry….grammar?), that would be more than okay.

We, grammarians of the world, have too much trying to drag us down — apathy toward the English language, internet-speak, poor grammar education, a quickly evolving language that works against us more often than for us. Now we have something else: marketing executives trying to play educator.

STOP IT.

STOP IT NOW.

God.

Thanks, Eric Jay, for bringing my attention to this lunacy. (As for the gym teachers’ college comment….yeah, not the best taste. It was a line from Salute Your Shorts. I guess the humor didn’t quite transfer.)

Thoughts?

A Bit of Vandalism

I went up to Reading, my hometown, to see my Mom tonight, and we stopped at Linens-N-Things and Staples. I (finally) had a pen in my purse, so I corrected a few grammatical errors:

Location: Linens-N-Things, Reading, MA

These everyday signs were all over the store. It hurts. It really hurts.

Location: Staples, Reading, MA

You could make an argument for this one, saying that the sign was telling you to picture perfect holidays. I don’t think that was the intention of the Staples marketing team — I think they wanted you to have picture-perfect holidays.

Come on! You are both obviously big chains — get an editor who didn’t go to gym teachers’ college!

More than one best friend

There is a lot of debate over whether it’s possible to have more than one best friend. After all, the term best is a superlative, and only one entity can hold a superlative.

But do you take the term best literally?

Language evolves — we all know that. I think that this is the reason why it is more common today for people to say that they have multiple best friends. The term has gone beyond meaning one and only and now, to many, means a very close, very important, very significant friend.

Take a group of four girls who spend all of their time together. They have plenty of outside friends from school and drama club and camp, but nobody even comes remotely close to their group.

I should know — I was one of those girls.

My sister will always be my best and closest friend. But beyond that, I’ve always had many best friends. Take the Brood — my three best friends from high school. We’re still very close, even after we’ve flung ourselves to different parts of the country.

Still, there are people who use the term best friend for one person or completely obliterate it altogether, referring to everyone as close friends.

Rachel Robinson did in Judy Blume’s book Just as Long as We’re Together. I haven’t read that book since I was in middle school, but I remember Rachel’s outburst at the end clearly: “How can we all be best friends? Best means best! It’s impossible to have more than one best friend!” In the end, the three girls decide to consider each other “close friends.”

Is it really impossible, though?

I know that opinions greatly differ.

My question to you:

Is it possible to have more than one best friend?

The Brood: my best friends of all time. Here we are in Montreal in 2002, just a few weeks before going off to college.