GrammarBlog

Organic food in a hurry

2008-08-11T18:24:00.002+01:00

"Expresso", originally uploaded by kyz.

This mistake is worryingly common and makes me chuckle every time I see it.

This is also one of those errors that I have to verbally correct when I hear spoken. I can often be seen in the queue at Starbucks obnoxiously hissing at some poor soul, "Esssssssspresso!".

I can't help it; it's a compulsion.

Think twice before "filling" your tank

2008-08-06T18:37:00.001+01:00

It's not just the astronomical oh-my-God-let's-get-hysterical-about-this-good-and-proper fuel prices that are vexing drivers on our petrol station forecourts at the moment. There is a far greater menace to be found in the form of these "unnecessary quotation marks" I discovered at a Texaco garage, just prior to emptying the contents of my wallet and handing over my car in order to meet the cost of this transaction.

Update: Some of those more skilled in identifying the lowest form of wit than I am have pointed out that I have been slightly hasty and, more crucially, incorrect in denouncing quotation mark use on this occasion. I hereby apologise to the petrol station employee who labelled the pump, even though they still sound like a right tosser.

The revenge of the sub

2008-07-25T15:46:00.005+01:00

While I was adding my no-doubt unwanted and ill-advised editorial notes to Dan's last post I got carried away. I thought I'd continue in a new post to reduce the wrath.

This isn't the first time Coren has done this type of thing. His previous victim was fellow reviewer Feargus O'Sullivan. Before that, an unfortunate magazine sub-editor caught both barrels of Coren's direct email style for altering the typographers favourite phrase, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

According to Giles, this latest email is "ancient". Could its leaking be connected with the recent emergence of a foul-mouthed Coren caricature on twitter? This assumed-to-be poseur kept me amused this week but has now sadly (if understandably) been booted from the service.

So is this an example of the sub's (or subs') revenge? The suspect list must include Owen, Amanda, Ben and Tony from the Times' editorial team who were the apparent targets of Coren's rage.

**Update: The Times subs have responded.

The holy Coren

2008-07-25T13:00:00.006+01:00

This quite magnificent email was sent by British restaurant critic Giles Coren to the newspaper he writes for. It doesn’t seem in the least petty to me.

[In a highly satirical editor's note that will no doubt leave Dan foaming at the mouth, Coren-style mad, I'd like to share a transcript of a few highlights of the letter sent by Coren.

It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.
I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."
It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."
There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best".
Well, you fucking don't.

He goes on to explain the correctness of the indefinite article in the context of Yiddish syntax and the puerile double entendre implied by the original phrase.

And then this:

And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

Don't hurt me, Dan - Ed]

[Actually it's Gez. I don't know anyone called Ed]

Not a trifling matter

2008-07-17T18:53:00.007+01:00

Passive Aggressive Notes is one of my favourite blogs. A major reason for this is the frequent mangling of the English language by disgruntled passive-aggressors. Below is one of my favourite entries from October of last year.

Isn't that marvellous? The txt speak, the sentence formation, the vulgarity, the threat (and ass kicking will surely follow) and the remarkable sign-off all add up to comedy gold. I was most confused by the use of the word trifling. In the context of such extreme vehemence, trifling – defined by those Oxford blokes as "unimportant or trivial" – seemed misplaced. In fact, I spent a good couple of minutes trying to identify a possible malapropism, to no avail.

"But why bring this up now?" I hear you ask, "this post is the best part of a year old!".

I shall tell you for why. At the end of last month I twittered (yes, that's a verb now) a message asking other twitterers what they thought of a piece from guardian.co.uk on language evolution. The author, Paul MacInnes was lamenting what he views as the introduction of unnecessary words into the formal lexicon.

It appears that GrammarBlog twitter friend eris_chaos agrees with MacInnes, responding thusly.

I find that irritating. We are THAT much closer to trifling meaning "nasty" in the dictionary instead of "trivial".

And the penny drops. It's not a malapropism, it's a colloquialism. That's an altogether different kind of ism. Indeed the urban dictionary (shudder) carries the following definition.

When a hippo takes a big dump in front of a group of 1st graders and then eats it.
That's triflin'.

In response to the hungry hippo's action, Oh no, that's triflin'!

You learn something new ~~everyday~~ every day.

Rather than launch into indignant polemic, I thought I'd canvass opinion on this matter. So what do you lot reckon?

A Hole New World

2008-06-28T23:28:00.003+01:00

Sometimes spelling errors can initiate fairly sinister thoughts. I don't think I want to know who the 'Hole Family' are, but clearly they'd enjoy themselves at Cha Cha's.

Thanks to Noah Tarnow, who saw this on the Coney Island boardwalk.

See what you say: premisis

2008-06-20T12:58:00.004+01:00

I came across this in the car park of a public house on the picturesque A57 'Snake Pass' route, which crosses the Peak District and connects the cities of Manchester and Sheffield.

It always amusis me when someone abusis spelling in such an obvious way, and yet the error still makes it onto public signs before anyone noticis. Needless to say, drinks were spilled here.

Electronic'S - R - US

2008-06-16T21:58:00.008+01:00

Electronic'S - R - US, originally uploaded by Dan of Future's Past.

This is a horror show of a sign.

It always irks me how "toysRus" turned a repugnantly illiterate phrase into a brand name, so I obviously hate to see it copied. When combined with apostrophe abuse, this causes my eyelid to twitch à la the captain from Police Academy.

I post this in the knowledge that fellow GrammarBlogger Tom (should we begin to employ GrammarBlog as a surname when referring to a member of our fraternity?) will be horrified at yet another unwise application of the Bank Gothic typeface.

'Do you want salt and crazy grammar on the chips?'

2008-06-16T21:50:00.005+01:00

This magnificently insane comma usage was discovered upon my most recent trip to Windy Harbour, my local chippy in south Manchester.

I can't fault their heavenly chips or their wonderfully crisp battered cod, but what possessed them here? As if this scatterbrain punctuation wasn't enough, when I then slumped against the counter to recover my breath I was faced with this on the menu board:

The spelling. Why not just copy the word 'sausage' from the entry above? And yes, those really are "unnecessary quotation marks" encompassing the word 'batterd'. Perhaps my chipmonger was batterd on booze when he did it. It's the only rational explanation.

Grammar Abuse in Signage: Part 18

2008-06-16T10:52:00.004+01:00

I was out for a quiet coffee with my wife over the weekend and, as I headed to the counter to pay for our drinks, I was met with this egregious pair of notices.

Once again, for the pathologically illiterate, pluralisation does not require an apostrophe.

As you cast your eye casually northwards, you notice that they are no longer accepting £50 notes, for which they 'appologies' for any 'inconveinience' caused. You have no idea what kind of so-called 'inconveinience', nay grief, you have caused.

Grammar Abuse in Signage: Part 17

2008-06-15T12:15:00.009+01:00

A couple of lovely signage atrocities to brighten up your Sunday drudge.

I'm a huge fan of this mess – sent to us by Martin Greenberger of Westchester, California. Aside from the moronic spelling, I really like the ignorant (but wonderfully earnest) attempts at Emphasis.

This, sent in by Simon Pittock, is a splendid example of what can happen when inbred fayre-goers get access to the magic of Microsoft Publisher. Typographically, it's a real stinker. The spacing, size and placement of the characters seems to have been deliberately randomised; it's as if the designer, in a fit of politically-inspired pique, has decided to reject uniformity and smash the system. Excellent.

Bog basics

2008-06-11T12:54:00.004+01:00

Public toilets may well be the sordid stomping ground of sexual predators, but that's no excuse for bad grammar.

Brian De Groodt, who found us via our mention in the Wall Street Journal, explains:

I make an annual trip up to Laguna Seca in Monterey, California to join about 150,000 other motorcyclists for a big race. As you might imagine, some motorcyclists are smarter than many others. One apparently was staying at the same campsite as me and was clearly offended by the poor grammar this considerate citizen used in trying to encourage some civility in the camp. Anyone that's ever visited a men's restroom knows the need for this message and clearly the "proofreader" in this restroom wanted to make sure the message was not left to misinterpretation. I'd argue there's a lot more to be done here (caps and punctuation) but it's a good start.

Keep up the good work Brian.

Reuters says employs bad internet freelance journalists

2008-06-08T10:48:00.005+01:00

There's a peculiar, mangled use of the present tense in journalism, apparently for the purpose of conveying immediacy. It also seems to go hand-in-hand with an aversion to pronouns. When used cleverly it can often make for snappy, memorable headlines; when deployed by a moron, it boggles brains.

Thanks to new GrammarBlog reader Michelle Stephens, who apparently felt an 'overwhelming urge' to share this with us. Good to know we're having that sort of effect on people.

Unelectable

2008-06-05T21:15:00.002+01:00

When people speak of unelectable leaders or political parties, many refer to Michael Foot’s Labour Party and its relatively sensible manifesto for the 1983 UK general election. But from now on, whenever I think about what might make someone unelectable, I will think of this monstrosity:

Thank you to Scott Bryant for sharing the pain. Having been handed this flyer by the candidate, he presumably made his way straight to the polling station to spoil his ballot paper. He has seen fit to preserve the anonymity of the culprit, though, and has therefore seen off the prospect of a spate of vigilante attacks on the candidate’s home. Well done, Scott. Lesser men would have just thrown them at the feet of the pack of grammatical wolves.

Successfully running for any level of office should require thoroughness and a keen eye for detail. But this is the electioneering equivalent of one of those ‘spot the hazard’ diagrams I was often given at school, which saw me circling any number of clear dangers such as unstable ladders, loose electrical plugs and knives resting on chairs.

This person’s errors are glaring and numerous, rendering them unforgivable, never mind unelectable. A typical Republican, you might say.

Delicattesen

2008-06-04T14:46:00.001+01:00

Sign of failure, originally uploaded by emmastory.

Here we have another missing accent combined with a superfluous apostrophe.

What is a 'Delicattesen'? Why are there companies that don't know how to spell their own services?

Like the corners of my mind.

2008-06-04T09:27:00.001+01:00

Thanks go to Gary Pettecrew for sending us this photo, taken in Moreton-in-the-Marsh, Cotswolds.

Gary says, "I saw this and thought of you, GrammarBlog."

How sweet.

Caf'e Rio

2008-06-03T13:10:00.001+01:00

I'm not sure what to make of this. Haven't the proprietors done their market research?

Thanks to Andrew Green

Dearly Beloved

2008-05-31T00:05:00.001+01:00

Dan's Stag, originally uploaded by Gez D.

This angry young man is GrammarBlog's very own Dan. He's getting married today in the fair city of Edinburgh.

I'm sure you would all like to join me in congratulating Dan and his lovely bride, and wish them all the happiness in the world.

I, along with fellow blogstodians Tom and Paddy, will be there to enjoy the 'craic' (as I believe they say in Scotchland) and I'm sure a merry time will be had by all.

The above photo was taken in Stansted airport on the way out to Valencia for Dan's stag do, an account of which can be found over at Paddy's personal blog.

I have quite a number of photos from that trip that are worthy of GrammarBlogging, but I haven't quite got round to it yet.

I should say, before Dan objects, that this is not the most flattering picture. He really is quite handsome when not scowling.

Mail box's

2008-05-26T00:12:00.001+01:00

Apostrophe catastrophe, originally uploaded by Clive Murray.

Thanks to Clive Murray for this gem.

Apparently this shop can be found on George Lane in South Woodford, London.

Clive adds, "I cannot tell you the name of the shop as I was too busy vomiting, and only managed to pause just long enough to take this picture."

We understand.

Customer Support

2008-05-12T22:13:00.005+01:00

Today Tesco Customer Support provided me with this juicy number:

"I'm sorry that the item you received an email referring to a refund for your recent order."

I don't care who you are, that's some astonishing gibberish. In case you're wondering what the man was trying to establish, it was, in fact, that we had been mistakenly refunded for some items that we hadn't actually bought. Well done them.

Bappy hirthday

2008-05-12T13:26:00.002+01:00

Happy birthday, GrammarBlog. One year old and still indignant.

Grammar Abuse in Signage Part 16

2008-05-10T00:54:00.002+01:00

Nothing to add here. Disgusting.

A single conclusion?

2008-05-09T15:40:00.002+01:00

Last week I asked a question: how should those silly folks in the Apprentice have punctuated their card? National Single's Day, National Singles' Day or National Singles Day?

We had quite a few responses in line with my first reaction, such as this one from Andrew.

Singles', because it's both possessive and plural. I don't see why this is hard!

So it's easy. Or is it? I remembered some confusion similar to this during the writers strike (note the lack of apostrophe). I did see one paper refer to it as the "writers' strike" but most took the view that the act was a strike and the word "writers" described who was striking. We all know that a word describing a noun is an adjective and adjectives are not possessive. No apostrophe.

Grammar Girl (whose website is now my primary reference for a sensible and informed opinion on all grammar matters) has this to say.

I believe it's pretty clear that the writers don't own the strike, and that the word writers is there to tell us more about what kind of strike it is. So I'd leave out the apostrophe.

On the other hand, I'd include the apostrophe in homeowners' association, at least when the homeowners actually own or control the association that manages their property.

So the question is, does the day belong to the singles or not?

My view is that National Singles Day is a day to celebrate singles, such as Pancake Day is a day to celebrate the pancake. So no apostrophe is required.

There are many examples of possessed days; These are usually singular: Valentine's day, St. George's day, Mother's day (contentious I know, but you've only got one Mum). There are also examples, as pointed out by Binary Tales, of plurals owning a day. These include National Parks' Week World Teachers' Day and International Women's Day.

The point here is that the contestants in the apprentice were inventing a new occasion. So they can call it what they choose; National Singles' Day is acceptable. However I prefer National Singles Day, especially in the context of a greetings card, for both logical and aesthetic reasons.

Fuelmyblog blog of the day

2008-05-09T09:12:00.006+01:00

We're blog of the day over at fuelmyblog. We even get an award to display.

I'd like to thank Dan, Tom, Paul, Paddy, Stephen Fry, A.A. Gill, Lynne Truss, MRP, the Engine Room, Paul Brians, Grammar Girl... sorry I'm getting a bit emotional. Oh, I almost forgot to thank my parents and God.

Uh oh, the music's playing.

Fuelmyblog users can vote for us here.

Love thy neighbour (even if he's a high fullutent)

2008-05-07T08:24:00.001+01:00

If none of these people is going to heaven, I don't want to go there either.

Apart from the spelling and apostrophe abuse, this is priceless. Why pick on freelancers, emos and sports nuts?

Found here.

**Update**

I've just found another picture of the same banner. It's not freelancers; it's freeloaders.