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.)

My Favourite Sign Ever

As I may have mentioned before, I was in Australia in 2000 visiting my good friend Tania. During one of our ventures along the east coast, we stopped in a small village for gas (correction: petrol). I was surprised when I went in to pay and the owner asked, "How much was it?" There were no computers inside to tell him how much we owed - we had to go back outside to look at the pump reading. Ah, how refreshing! Already charmed, imagine my giddy joy when Tania discovered My Favourite Sign Ever! Attached to the gas (petrol) station was a pink brick building with this sign:

Aside from the mixing of two languages and the hilarious combination of fast food and art (in French, no less! Verrrry fancy), there's nothing technically wrong with the sign. Tania and I started laughing the instant we saw it, and I'm still laughing after nearly a decade.

Your's and Mine

I found this ad in the paper a few weeks ago. I suspected the spelling wasn't the newspaper's fault because of the stylized text. (I've blocked out the phone number and address to protect the offenders from the flood of prank phone calls that would surely pour in after this post is read by my thousands of followers.... feel free to read sarcasm here.)

So since it was an ad for a local business, I decided to make sure I was ridiculing the correct party (and if I was wrong, I guess I'd "come in & browse" - ugh! A big sloppy thhhppt! at the cheesy drop-shadow and messy font, but that's another blog...). Upon arrival I saw this:

And as I walked up, this (it's like the apostrophe leapt off in protest):

 

Aaaaaannnd for good measure:

Fashion with experience? [indignant snort]  Well, I guess you don't have to be able to spell "red" to tell someone they look good in it. Oh my, snarky girl.

Wide Right Turn's

Caution! This vehicle may cause my friend Tara to have an accident in traffic. She took this photo in Vancouver a week before she knew I was blogging on the same subject (AHA! Proof that I'm not alone...).



Okay, the useless and offensive addition of apostrophes in "make's" and "turn's" is insulting to us grammar freaks... but maybe we should have a moment of appreciation for the period at the end of it. (Really? Do signs have periods?)

Soul Job

Trish passed this on to me - it's an article from the Victoria Times Colonist about a mega sewage treatment project in Victoria. Here's her comment:

Sewage and soul jobs - is that some sort of freudian slip? Well, it was for this report. Do you like the odd newspaper slip, oh queen of typ-oh! s? : )

And the link:

http://www.timescolonist.com/Technology/Capital+Regional+District+votes+favour+four+sewage+plants+billion/1655084/story.html

...for those of you who don't want to read it (the typo is in the 10th paragraph), here's the quote:

“The province would probably appoint a board, a quasi-public board... and they would be tasked with carrying out sewage treatment,” he [CRD chairman] said. “It would probably go out to a p3 proposal of some kind and our soul job would be as municipal councils to figure out how to raise the money to pay for it.”

Actually, it makes the CRD sound more caring and invested in the project - the peace of their souls is directly connected to the treatment of poo. Now that's civic dedication.