Slashdot Mirror
The Great Typo Hunt
jamie writes "Incensed by a 'no tresspassing' sign, Jeff Deck launched a cross-country trip to right grammatical wrongs. He enlisted a friend, Benjamin D. Herson, and together they erased errant quotation marks, rectified misspellings and cut unnecessary possessive apostrophes. The Great Typo Hunt is the story of their crusade." We have already covered the duo's fight with The National Park Service.
Another grammar Nazi
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Excessive abuse of grammar is frustrating and it can be enjoyable on occasion to correct it, but something about these guys just make me view them as douches. I'm not surprised that it was featured on NPR, of all places.
Of all the things to obsess over and waste your time "contributing" to in this world, correcting government signs is going to be it? Really?!
Language is about communication, it's not about the RULES of grammar. Yes, we have arbitrarily decided rules as to what gets an apostrophe and how things are spelled and so on...failing to follow this rule or that at any given time doesn't often hinder the communication. If someone says to me "pimipin' ain't easy", I get what they said. I don' t need them make sure they put the "g" on the end or use "isn't" instead of "ain't". Thanks to my abhorently abusive Catholic school education, I still cringe when I see someone's written "Thank's for shopping at our store's!", but I don't feel the need to correct them. That would just be douchey. You know...like these two guys.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
You loose. Slashdot has it's own set of rules. Besides, you should of said "asplode".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
If you own a sign, it's yours. You get to alter it, deface it, replace it, do whatever you want with it.
If you don't own a sign, and don't have permission of the owner or some specific sign-maintaining authority, then altering it is an act of vandalism. Your intent is irrelevant. It's not your sign. Don't like it? Too bad. Offer the sign owner some money to replace the sign with one that is to your liking, and maybe they'll take you up on it.
There's a really old-looking hand-carved sign at Yellowstone that talks about the dangers of getting too close to critters. IIRC it's near Old Faithful, but it's been about 10 years since I've been there, so my memory might be bad. The wood is well-weathered, the carving is pretty good, and it's obviously a matter of some effort on the part of the park service to preserve it. Unfortunately, it has a single spelling error (reversal of two letters in a word), and there are various correction marks that have been scratched and scrawled into it over the years that really ruin the look of the sign.
If it's not yours and you haven't been put in charge of maintaining it, keep your markers and tools off it. Please.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"Whoosh", wrote the slashdotter with a smile on his face, feeling superior to the parent poster but slightly uneasy, for he was haunted by the possibility of nourishing a troll instead of educating the masses.
Like it or not, I can attest to the fact that I often mentally judge someone by their speech if I am talking to them, or by their spelling and punctuation if I am reading their writing. I am sure I am hardly alone. If they lack the ability to compose a coherent sentence, or the decency to use a spell checker, and have no concept of grammatical formations, then I am inclined to judge them as uneducated, ignorant or ill-informed, and I tend to disregard whatever it was that they were trying to communicate. Now, I grant you that sometimes one might type "Pimpin' ain't easy" for the effect - but the intention is to imply someone who is a lower-class, uneducated and possibly not very bright individual. If you regularly communicate in a similar style, you will look equally lower-class, uneducated and possibly not very bright. In other words, its a matter of communication. If you communicate poorly, you tend to be ignored, and in my opinion whatever you have to say matters less.
If I am reading forum posts and I come across a post that is utterly incoherent, misspelled, or contains a lot of grammatical errors, I skip it. That person has failed to get whatever point they were trying to make across to me at least, and likely others. If you want to be given attention, and your opinions to be given any consideration, learn to communicate using proper grammar, spelling etc. Failure to do so simply makes you look like an idiot.
Now, unleash the Grammar Nazis to let me know where I have erred in my post. I tried to be correct throughout, but I am sure I have made at least one mistake :)
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
My personal favourite was at a fast food Chinese place. The sign? "No. MSG"
I took that to mean that if you asked a question the answer would be "No." Followed by "MSG"
Eg. "Do you use healthy preservatives in your food?" "No. MSG"
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
That's nonsense on several counts.
Are you adequate?
If you're actually interested: fewer relates to countable nouns, less to uncountable. Less water, fewer glasses. "Less glasses" sounds as wrong as "fewer water".
Of course, few people read edited prose these days, and so most lack the "ear" for poor usage. It will be an odd time for language, with almost everyone literate but not reading books.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Data" is plural; the singular is "datum". Just like errata and erratum. In a sense you're right, "data" has turned into a popular word and its meaning is changing, but trying to claim that it has recently become popular to use it as plural is completely wrong; rather the reverse is true.