Or should I say Monday’s?
Either way, Kacia has a prescription for your Monday blues. It’s an Anonymous Honorary RPBer submission! And thank goodness, because who really wants an unnecessary apostrophe on their first day back at work?
So three cheers for whomever, and for the Red Tape of Correctness!
Reporter #1: The ATM is what?
ATM: I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t answer that.
Reporter #1: What are you going to do? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
ATM: This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
Has anyone heard from Reporter #1 recently??
Also, if you’re looking for a fun minute or two and you don’t already follow Letters of Note (which you SHOULD do), check out “Does IBM know that HAL is psychotic?”
Reporter #1 is baaaaack, y’all. Well, okay, she never went anywhere, but I’m back to posting her stuff.
Reporter #1 entitles this photograph “Comma splices: they’re not just for undergraduate essays anymore!”
I’m just so busy being glad that they spelled “it’s” correctly that the comma barely bothers me. But it is, in fact, a comma, as we can see if we compare it to the exclamation point. And that makes it WRONG.
Just for fun, Reporter #1 included this extra wrongness in the same email!
I have no idea who this submitter is! And that is very exciting, because mostly people who send me things are people I know, people I knew once, or people I have otherwise harassed on the internet in some way! So hi, welcome, Submitter Jake!
So all I know about this picture is that it is from Jake, who says it’s from Beaverton, OR, and who correctly notes that
This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t CLEARLY come off a tear-away pad with hundreds of copies of the same mistake!
Belinda tagged me in this photo on Facebook, captioning it “No shoe’s, no shirt’s, no service.”
Later Belinda commented that “it was physically uncomfortable to write that sentence.” I’LL say. Every time one of your friends replies, I have to LOOK at it again. So THANKS, Belinda.
Apparently, USA Today ranked this place’s burger #1 in Minnesota. But Kacia would like to give them a thumbs-down on punctuation. She’s also frustrated that “rootbeer” is one word.
Obviously Messrs Casper and Runyon subscribe to the apostrophe-after-a-vowel school of apostrophe usage, as they haven’t bothered using one in “floats” or “malts.” But as we all know, this school of thought is WRONG.
As for “rootbeer”? Well, the squiggly red line is telling me that’s wrong. But funnily enough, it doesn’t upset my stomach. In fact I find it far more disquieting to stop and think about root beer being made out of roots. It’s kind of like mincemeat: one of those words you just shouldn’t over-analyze. But technically, you’re right, Kacia, it’s two strikes. Let’s hope the burger wasn’t a third!
Two orders of business before we get down to red-penning.
One, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! <insert singing, including joyful dog joining-in, here>
Ahem. Okay. Two: a warning. It seems that Colleen — otherwise known as GrammarTroika sister #1 — took my title-offering threat seriously and has stepped up her submission rate. So buckle your seatbelts and prepare for a bunch of stuff from her, y’all!
Colleen’s not just bringing the quantity, she’s got quality in the mix too. Check this one out.
We do have a clear error here, I’d argue: “Women Rights” is just not okay no matter how I parse it. But I think I can see how they got there. For whatever reason, I’m okay with “Patient Rights,” and you wouldn’t want to go sticking an apostrophe-s on “women” when you don’t have one on “patient.” The balance of the sign would be all wonky. You follow? My CDO (it’s OCD, in the correct alphabetical order!) tendencies are grateful.
On the other hand, they did decide to go with what I assume is a resume point (“charitable org. president”) as a parallel to an imperative verb statement (“remove corrupt politicans”). Which is way more unwieldy than that neglected apostrophe would have been.
I’m not going to imply that these… interesting choices cost Major and Mrs. Shah the election. I’m just saying. You know?
Reporter #1 says,
Wegmans might be the reason Mama Baldwin can’t be persuaded to leave New York, but that doesn’t mean they know how to use apostrophes properly.
Okay, don’t hate me, Yankees, but this is absolutely the first I’ve heard of Wegmans, or of the apparently controversial on-again, off-again relationship with Alec Baldwin and his mother. Being who I am, my first concern about this entity was where it got its name. “Wegmans” sets off certain bells in my head, you know? The apostrophe-related bells.
But apparently the chain was founded by two brothers Wegman. So they’re okay on that point. I mean, they would have gotten major extra punctuation points for having gone with a terminal apostrophe — or alternatively they could have gone for major humor points with “Wegmen”! But that might be asking too much. We shall just be glad they’re not committing blatant apostrophe discrimination with their very existence.
That said, my personal giggle came from Reporter #1, who added
Also, do you know how hard it is to get the Wegmans bathroom to yourself so you don’t have to explain why you’re taking pictures of the sign on the diaper stand?
Guys, joining the RPB is nothing of which to be ashamed. Go forth and photograph proudly!
Okay, Kacia is rapidly becoming Reporter #2! (That’s a challenge issued, Colleen. And Dad. Just saying.)
Kacia found this one on the Facebooks. I’m tagging Facebook posts now because Facebook is its own cesspool of typographic awful. You’re welcome.
Again, I’m distracted by the good in this post. I guess I’m just in an optimistic place recently! I’m just excited by that comma after “that.” I’m fantasizing that there was a matching comma at the other end. Leave me alone, it’s only my Tuesday.
(In other good news, the group in question appears to have either ceased to exist or have come to its senses, as I can’t find it on Facebook. Kacia, if you’re a member and know where they went, sent the info and I’ll linkify.)
It’s that time of year again, ladies and gents: time for Kacia to monitor the Minnesota State Fair for RPB submissions!
As Kacia noted in her email, this is actually a really nicely made birdhouse. And as anybody who has ever interacted with squirrels knows, the warning is definitely appropriate. It’s the driving force behind so many fabulous inventions (check out the videos for the Whipper, Tipper, and Flipper at Droll Yankees if you don’t believe me).
I’m just concerned that a particularly well-educated squirrel might look at this and say “No squirrel is allowed in there? Clearly the owner of this home was concerned about squirrel-y solitude, as multiple squirrels are welcome. SQUIRREL HOUSE PARTY!”
And as we all know, squirrel house parties are a really bad idea.
Thanks, Kacia!