grodscorp@grods.com
I often curse myself for not carrying with me at all times a big felt-tipped permanent marker. You see, nothing shits me more than incorrect spelling, missing or incorrectly placed apostrophe’s (!), or poor grammar. Reading restaurant menus or shop signs with errors gives me an overwhelming urge to correct the mistake. I strongly believe that there is no excuse for publishing any piece of writing so publicly with errors. Surely, I think, the copy for a sign or menu must go through so many levels of proof reading that mistakes are impossible.
But not so.
Went around to Goobermetrics and The Amy Commission’s apartment today and was greeted by this real estate agency’s For Sale sign at the front door:
Putting aside for a moment the inane writing that passes for real estate advertising (it’s the kind of copy that The Age journalists aspire to), I was gobsmacked by such a fundamental error being made in the heading of the sign. However, the shock was offset by relief that somebody much more prepared than I had corrected it for me.
I mean, for fuck’s sake, what is the word “transcend” even doing in a real estate advert?
Sunday 17 June 2007, 6:25 pm #Mikey
They forgot a comma after originality, and when you use numbers if they are less than 10 then you should have the words Vs the numerals.
Monday 18 June 2007, 8:18 am #Jangari
It’s fine without that comma, Mikey, but more erroneous is this:
Now, apart from being an awful sentence, there’s a dangling participle there. The clause beginning with featuring describes the apartment, surely, but it should be a predicate of the subject of the overall sentence (since the dangling participle lacks one overtly), which is you. So syntactically, this means that you feature originality from the …, and will marvel at the…. Et cetera.
Think of this example, Smelling like a rubbish bin, I looked at the dog. Who smells?
Monday 18 June 2007, 5:30 pm #J, The
“Lofty heights transcending” a warehouse doesn’t make sense, whatever the spelling.
Monday 18 June 2007, 6:52 pm #Magic Bellybutton
Check out this from my neighbourhood.
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 11:17 am #Today is one of those days when the muse has left the building « Iain Hall
[...] my usual blog crawl did find an example of an orthographic Nazi. a cat blogger using his moggie as some sort of hat and Julia Gillard wants to se an end to the [...]
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 6:11 pm #The Editor
The post from which the above trackback comes calls me an “orthographic Nazi.” Let’s run the relevant paragraph of that post through the O-Nazi filter:
On my usual blog crawl did (sic) find an example of an orthographic Nazi. a (sic) cat blogger using his moggie as some sort of hat and Julia Gillard wants to se (sic) an end to the culture wars by encouraging more examples of fine balanced aussie (sic) drama like “Curtin” and the “Bastard Boys” (sic)
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 6:31 pm #Bridgit Gread
I guess if I couldn’t drive, I’d be inclined to call those who could “motor-Nazis”. Mind you, at least then I’d have the sense to stay the hell off the road.
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 8:47 pm #Jangari
‘Grammar Nazis’ make me [sic].
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 8:49 pm #The Editor
That’s such an orthographic Nazi dad-joke.
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 9:27 pm #Bourbon Boy
http://ilovebourbon.blogspot.com/2007/06/mengele-of-mount-mee-i-usually-have-no.html
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 9:44 pm #John Surname
““orthographic Nazi.””
To the testimonial page that must go!
Tuesday 19 June 2007, 9:49 pm #Bridgit Gread
Godwin’s Law is well and truly invoked.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 8:04 am #The Editor
Iain; Hall has tried to fix his orthographic errors after reading this comment thread but still can’t get it right:
On my usual blog crawl I did find an example of an orthographic Nazi, a cat blogger using his moggie as some sort of hat and (sic) that Julia Gillard wants to see an end to the culture wars by encouraging more examples of fine “balanced” Aussie drama like “Curtin” and the “Bastard Boys” (sic)
Needs more semi colons.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 12:39 pm #Steve
Oregon is also spelled incorrectly in their poxy sign. Unless the beams were designed by an Irishman, that is.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 3:09 pm #The Editor
Iain; Hall has now corrected another error since reading the comment two above this one.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 3:19 pm #Bridgit Gread
Good to see that he is paying attention. It brings a warm tingle knowing that as a collective we are helping the lad with his orthography.
Wednesday 20 June 2007, 5:23 pm #Lang
I took a young bloke over to a large town near here to a job recruitment agency, a large national one,for his first ever application for employment, and the manager handed us a couple of test papers, first time I had ever been to such a place, to check his ability at maths and logic, I think, and the manager said “Will youse be allright with them and oil be back in ten minutes when youse will have to be finished”. Spare me.