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'Grammar Vigilante' Secretly Corrects Bristol Street Signs (irishtimes.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A self-confessed "grammar vigilante" has been secretly correcting bad punctuation on street signs and shop fronts in Bristol for more than a decade. The anonymous crusader carries out his work in the dead of night using the "Apostrophiser" -- a long-handled tool he created to reach the highest signs. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the BBC that correcting rogue apostrophes is his speciality.

9 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bansky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Technically you would want a spelling vigilante for that, rather than a grammar vigilante.

  2. Re:Why is this even on Slashdot? by smooth+wombat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering the amount of misspelled words and improper usage (their/there/they're or break/brake), it might be a not-so-subtle hint to get your act together.

    If you don't think proper grammar is important, then you probably don't believe proper coding is important either.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  3. Re:idiots like this on stackflow by Calydor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The level of care given to writing a question sets the bar for the level of care given to answering the question.

    If you can't be arsed to reach your pinky finger to the side to hit your Shift key, why should other people be arsed to stop what they're doing to help you?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  4. Re:idiots like this on stackflow by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You want help specifically from pedantic nerds, but you can't be bothered to speak their language? Further, you're upset about the very personality traits that make them able to help you?

    Just go back to Facebook and Twitter. You fit in there. You don't fit in here.
     

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  5. Re:Why is this even on Slashdot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Grammar, it's the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit.

  6. Re:idiots like this on stackflow by HornWumpus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    arsed too reply with speling and grammer correction?

    Does anybody think those replies are 'to help'? Pitiful, self congratulatory, mental fapping. The middle schooler, desperate to show how smart (s)he is. Big words, half understood, that's the grammarian.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  7. Re: As long as it's just apostrophes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not less but fewer. ...ten or fewer items...

    Items are countable.

  8. Re:idiots like this on stackflow by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because I have arthritis in my hands I typo stuff sometimes. I could carefully proof read my internet posts, but it's fucking Slashdot. Incorrect case isn't going to stop people understanding the message.

    And if you are that bothered by it... Okay, I'll go without your reply, my life is too short to care about trivial mistakes.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  9. Re:As long as it's just apostrophes... by moeinvt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Oh, cripes. Are you suggesting that less & fewer are *sometimes* interchangeable? Wonderful. Just what we need is another ambiguity in this language.

    I've heard the argument that what you have in your shopping basket ("groceries") is a fluid quantity because you don't talk about having a 'grocery'. That sort of makes sense. I think it's like quantum mechanics though. As soon as you take the groceries out of the basket and put them on the conveyor, they cease being fluid and become discrete "items".

    I would refuse to shop in a place that has "10 items or less" on a sign. :-)

    There's everything "wrong with it" when you've spent decades using "fewer" for that which is discrete and "less" only for that which is fluid or continuous.
    "10 items or less" just sounds wrong.