Rush & Rush

Cue the country twang and sing along if you like:
I'm in a hurry to get things done,
Oh I rush and rush .....

 

 and screw up this sign....

Okay, that's lame - sign doesn't rhyme with done or fun.  And speaking of lame... the lettering artist put an apostrophe on 'til (which can be considered correct, although there are a host of really dull arguments that claim "till" is the more correct way to shorten "until." AND, as an aside to my aside, Alabama actually sings the full word "until" in the song...), but there's a missing apostrophe in "Lifes." I can't even make fun of it for being a plural - it ain't even a word! (Oh, sorry, still in country twang mode.)

I do feel a little guilty that people put their lives at risk to take pictures on the highway, but Jen S., you made my day!

Weakly Treatment

No kidding. I got one of those face packs to energize, or clarify, or whatever my skin (they throw words at us that make us think we'll be magically transformed into younger, fresher, more vibrant - see? There I go doing it too - women). Here's a snippet of the instructions on the back (feel free to imagine a younger, fresher, more vibrant version of me, standing naked in the bathroom save for a puffy mint green spa headband, face smeared in exfoliating scrub, camera in hand... hot, right?):

Okay, it's not that easy to read, but fill in the blanks and skip to the end of the English bit. Quenching bath... blah blah blah... circular motions.... blah blah blah... to perfect your complexion... blah blah blah.... WEAKLY TREATMENT?!?

Well! They might have saved me the effort and put that first. I could have saved myself the $3. I struggled with the grammar at first, but I guess it's like saying "sickly child". (No, really I'm not that dumb. What I did first was realize it's a typo. THEN I got into playing with the grammar.)

What this is, is an unintentional bit of wisdom. We're all fools for the promise of perfection. I'm thinking about pitching a new, more "honest" system of labelling to spa/beauty product companies. The instructions will go something like this:

Rub this on your face. It smells good. Rinse off. You will continue to age.

Lens Machine Shop

I cranked a u-turn in a corner across double yellow lines to get a shot of this one.

The evil twin of the misplaced apostrophe - the forgotten apostrophe! I love this sign. It makes me want to stroll into the Lens Machine Shop with my glasses and ask if the scratch in the lens can be repaired with the lens machine, and if so, would that be using the gas or diesel engine? And how do I know the difference? Is lens repair more expensive with gas?

Also, even though it still doesn't make sense punctuationally (not a word? Huh, should be), I've begun to affectionately refer to the shop owner as Lens. Oh Lens, what were you thinking? Did Dicks Sign Shop hook you up? That Dicks is a nice guy...

Tree's Pruned

Here is a carefully-worded van sign designed to inspire confidence with its intelligent advertising. Complete with well-placed commas, big fancy words like "felled" and "turfing", and exemplary spelling throughout, there's nothing lacking here. In fact, there's extra - a bonus apostrophe to really dazzle us!

I love having friends on the lookout - thanks Omi for sending this to me. Feed the fire!

Bad Whether

Is it bad form to criticize foreign signs? After all, I took this picture in Italy, and I should feel fortunate that someone has taken the time (maybe not much...) to make sure us tourists get the message. I don't know, you tell me weather or not I should poke fun.

I do have to say, though, that I'm impressed with the comma after "bad". Such a fine detail in an otherwise ill-translated sign. Curious.

One Mayor, Two Mayor's, Three Mayor's, Four

 From Trish again - my genius on the lookout:

... just popped in to send you a perfect apostrophe typo for your blog - from the City of Vernon's news site, no less: 

The Provincial government’s Climate Action plan initiative prompted the Mayor’s to collaborate on the most cost effective way to accomplish these objectives through cooperation.  The Mayor’s recognized that a cooperative approach also applies to affordable housing, sustainability, economic development, water and air quality and transit – some of the major issues impacting all four jurisdictions – where cooperation could result in efficient action and a potential savings to taxpayers. The Mayor’s have instructed their respective chief administrative officers to begin work on a mechanism that would result in an action-oriented, transparent and ‘ultra-light’ approach – one that makes use of existing resources rather than creating another level of bureaucracy and an additional burden for taxpayers.

[Okay, there are only three Mayor's, but the title only made sense if I put the "Four" in there - forgive me.]

If one mayor gets together with a bunch of other mayors, do they become a... pod(?)... of Mayor's? Okay, I get the error - it happens to the best of us (well, not to us self-righteous grammar freaks, and, really, I'd like to imagine not to newspaper editors... but anyway).  But how can it be that there are other plurals (objectives, issues, savings, jurisdictions, officers, resources, taxpayers... uh, to be specific) that don't have the extra, useless, annoying, and totally incorrect apostrophe, but somehow more than one mayor gets an apostrophe? And why the capital "M"? (Don't get me started.)