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Grant, "Keef off" is marvelous! Love that.
Here's another to add to the list: I was nosing around on eBay just now, and happened across this doozy. Famous for what, again?
Ouch!
Enjoyed catching up on the new forum's posts -- and have this cautionary example to share from my work at an aircraft company.
We proudly display in the lobby a large, framed banner showing pictures of our latest aircraft and the signatures of everyone present on the day of its first flight.
Unfortunately, the person filling in as copywriter chose to use those "shout quotes". Or are they scare quotes?
CONGRATULATIONS -- C-xx "TEAM" on First Flight
My first reaction, of course, was -- "Wow, that's great! The management know that we have teamwork problems!
Um, but, why did they put it on the banner?"
(And I never suspected they could express irony!)
What ever happened to underlining a word for emphasis? Or emboldening, or different type? They already used all caps (looking rediculous in one of those highly serifed fonts, with little balls even on the top of the "A"), but must have been searching for more...
(project name removed to protect the -- well, me.)
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PS - On the very first photo in this string - The View Restaurant - I was looking for the regrettable punctionation and never made it to the fifth line with its extra apostrophe. On the second line, after puzzling through how different Pre-theatre Dinner and Dinner could be, I choked, stuck and flummaxed, struggling with the Tasting Menu, half way through Artisanal...
Wow. No sooner do I think I have shout quotes eradicated than I see this internal news item headline:
XYZ team honored for ‘delivering results'
Since there was a group photo, I can only assume that the company isn't being sarcastic!
I think this is a scary trend...
After feeling the pain of each misplaced comma and twitching at the frequency of rogue quotation marks I was overcome by a serious case of the warm fuzzies. Not because I feel at peace with all of the atrocious punctuation/spelling lurking in the world, but because I now realize that of all of my fellow word nerds out there are grimacing along with me. No longer will I tremble alone before the sign declaring “Your Gonna Love Our Ice Cream!” No longer will I feel powerless when confronted with the billboard asking “Is Your Gas Bill To High?” Now, as I wince at the “Please do not let the “cat” out!” sign, I know that you are all somewhere wincing with me. Hooray for Word Nerds! You are my people!!
fourteenhours said:
After feeling the pain of each misplaced comma and twitching at the frequency of rogue quotation marks I was overcome by a serious case of the warm fuzzies. Not because I feel at peace with all of the atrocious punctuation/spelling lurking in the world, but because I now realize that of all of my fellow word nerds out there are grimacing along with me. No longer will I tremble alone before the sign declaring “Your Gonna Love Our Ice Cream!” No longer will I feel powerless when confronted with the billboard asking “Is Your Gas Bill To High?” Now, as I wince at the “Please do not let the “cat” out!” sign, I know that you are all somewhere wincing with me. Hooray for Word Nerds! You are my people!!
This made me laugh out loud... It reads as though only the "cat" thinks it is such and the rest of us are just humoring him in this mistaken notion 😛
Martha, I just pulled up that website for Dictionary of Unfortunate Food and that is the funniest thing I've ever read. Maybe I'm just punchy today, but I am at work and having to keep my hand over my mouth because I'm laughing so hard, my fellow cubicle-drones are starting to get out the ventilator.
Thank you.
ps. Public sign typos and misspellings drive me insane. The parking garage at Norell Temporaries had their handy sign for the elevator painted in foot-tall white letters. Unfortunatly, they also spelled it 'elevater' about 30 times throughout the parking garage. Guess you can't get good help nowadays.
I read an anecdote about a man and woman not speaking because of a disagreement.
He sent her a note saying, “Woman without her man is an animal.â€
She punctuated it and returned the note to him: “Woman! Without her, man is an animal.â€
(Talk about using your own words against you!)
What I have been struggling with recently is software that changes my punctuation and spelling out from under me. When I'm using my mobile web browser, it continually changes every "its" to "it's." They get by me from time to time, and I feel like an idiot. (I doubtless am an idiot, but I try my best to hide it, and I prefer to have my perceived idiocy match my actual idiocy as closely as possible.)
I haven't figured out how to turn the dag-blamed auto-error thing off.
I have to edit almost every AWWW post I write on my mobile.
Re ‘elevater'... Andrew Jackson is often quoted (I am not sure of the truth of it, but still...) as saying "It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word."
But I often have to confess mea culpa: I once begged forgiveness in a letter I wrote to a friend for all the poor "speeling." Mistakes happen, and they do not bother me to much.
"Creative" punctuation, on the other hand, bothers me much more. It seems to me that whereas spelling can get screwed up as you push forward quickly with the creation of the communication to convey the idea, punctuation is part of the communication creation process itself and deserves more attention in honor of the thought. Bad punctuation is not bad spelling, it's a sin all on its own--or as some would have it--"its a sin all on it's own."
("Its" and "It's": What a great title for a book! More than ever do we miss the genius Shel Silverstein.)
In response to anyone who tries to excuse an "its/it's" error, I offer the following sentences:
A wise cat knows its master.
A wise cat knows it's master.
I once posted those on a BBS and had someone tell me the second was "just incorrect". Clearly, this person understood neither grammar nor cats.
The only one that I've seen in the past couple of months that raised my eyebrows was this sign posted in a grocery story bakery during Christmas (where, presumably, they wanted you to ring for service): "Every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings." That one isn't too bad, considering the ones that you guys have posted.
ETA: Well, I just realized that this thread is about punctuation. I guess the jokes on me (yes, no apostrophe deliberately; I might as well add something to this after all).
Grant Barrett said:
Actually, Joni, I believe that quotation marks are acceptably used as a way to bring attention to words, either to disparage them, to call them into question, or to emphasize their importance. I call them "shout quotes." But it is sometimes funny for a moment to pretend to misunderstand. Maybe the plaque creator was saying that the "door" wasn't really a door.
Gosh, I hope "shout quotes" aren't now universally accepted as proper. They grate me like "fingernails" on a "blackboard". The worst I ever saw was a sign over the commode in a University bathroom that read:
Please Don't Throw
"Paper Towels"
In The
"Toilet"
I always left wondering what the heck a "paper towel" might be...
David, I think you're willfully missing the point. People use quotes to emphasize a word. They're not always calling a word's authenticity into question. Like I said, it's fun to pretend that's what they're doing so you can get a laugh, but I can't believe anyone really misunderstand those quote marks, especially given how prevalent they are. It's dishonest to intentionally misread them and try to convince anyone that you really believe the person is using the quotes as anything other than emphasis.
While I have come to understand that some people use quotation marks for emphasis, a college experience — seeing attributions to apt scholars and authors scribbled next to them — *always* makes me consider them briefly as quotes.
Still, even understanding this use of quotation marks for emphasis, some uses baffle in their choice of words to emphasize:
e.g. Please "place" your tray on the conveyor "belt"
Park your "car" within the lines (I might accept: Park your car "within" the lines)
This way to "locker" room
or any one-word sign: e.g. "FORKS". (This is an actual one from my college cafeteria, attributed to Sigmund Freud)
I have noticed in recent years in text communications the use of asterisk to bracket words for emphasis:
e.g. I don't *want* to go now. I *have to*. (see also above)
My initial reaction to this punctuation innovation is positive.
Glenn said:
While I have come to understand that some people use quotation marks for emphasis, a college experience — seeing attributions to apt scholars and authors scribbled next to them — *always* makes me consider them briefly as quotes.
Still, even understanding this use of quotation marks for emphasis, some uses baffle in their choice of words to emphasize:
e.g. Please "place" your tray on the conveyor "belt"
Park your "car" within the lines (I might accept: Park your car "within" the lines)
This way to "locker" room
or any one-word sign: e.g. "FORKS". (This is an actual one from my college cafeteria, attributed to Sigmund Freud)I have noticed in recent years in text communications the use of asterisk to bracket words for emphasis:
e.g. I don't *want* to go now. I *have to*. (see also above)
My initial reaction to this punctuation innovation is positive.
I agree, Glenn. I much prefer "shout asterisks" to "shout quotes". They make a word you want to emphasize *sparkle* a bit, instead of seem "disingenuous".
On a tangent, I've noticed people using an asterisk in an IM to signify a correction of a typo. Has anyone else seen that? For instance:
- sorry, I have to un
- *run
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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