h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I committed a theft yesterday. I stole an apostrophe from a hardware shop. It was sitting there on a sign made from stick-on letters saying HOSE'S. I checked to see that nobody was looking, then peeled off the apostrophe and removed it from the building without paying.

Luckily, I got away with it.

A fine proofreader's theft!

If only you could have found a ROSES sign to affix the mark. I think Rose would appreciate it to know where she could find her stuff.

And, for your next act of gramatical deviance, you will be heading to ASDA and changing the 'less' frto 'fewer' on their stupid checkouts

Oooh, I'm reporting you for Apostrophe Abuse.

http://www.apostropheabuse.com/

If only all typos were so easily fixed

Yes indeed. I saw a sign in a shop window on Monday:

Seating available in-store

What they meant was:

Seating available in store

Gnomon: hero of the grammar conscious.

Thanks for the link, Count Zero!

Have you noticed how badly people react when you *inform* them they've made a spelling/grammar error?

Lynne Truss's book on the importance of apostrophes is very good:

The Girl's Like Spaghetti

In fact when you correct peoples' anything, they are likely to get mad. My daughter got the sack once for changing a menu, translated from Spanish into something stupid like Sir Lion steak into something comprehensible.

no, it was gilt-head - a fish known locally as Dorada. It was on the specials board and no one was ordering it. When she changed it to Sea Bream, they sold out. She was still sacked.

Ahem...

http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=302

The above is for folks familiar with social websites like Reddit and Digg.

* at the Earl's link*

Mmm . . . it can be dodgy, correcting people. If they are not selling something for you, you hardly have the right. Think of it as an ethnic situation; everybody's spelling is ethnic to them.

It is fun however correcting a broadcaster. I wrote to Cathal MacCoille (Irish radio journalist) a few months back --

Dear Cathal,

May I suggest that it just doesn't do to amend the grammar of public
figures. After all, where would you begin with someone like George
Bush?

It is worse when your suggestion is a disimprovement, as it was this
morning in the HSE/Ombudsman story.

That arbiter of correctness, the Shorter OED, chooses Goldsmith as the
first authority to quote under the word 'none': 'None of these however
are known to us'.

Fowler (Modern English Usage), under 'none', says: 'It is a mistake to
suppose that the pronoun is singular only and must at all costs be
followed by singular verbs'.

Partridge (Usage and Abusage) devotes over a page to the question,
concluding: 'To say [...] "None of the newspapers has appeared" is no
better than to say "No newspapers has appeared". Indeed, it is worse;
for vulgarity may be forgiven, but pretentiousness carries its own
heavy punishment.'

Yours faithfully

I reckon someone's been going round stealing consonants from roadsigns in Wales. Selling them on in Finland.

(He had read out with disdainful astonishment in his voice a statement by the Ombudsman to the effect that 'None of them were' and then in reported speech with 'was')

Thanks, but the Finns have enough consonants already, as proven of the longest and ancient palindrome in Finnish:

Saippuakauppias

Oops. I meant Vowels. They;re stealing *vowels* from Wales and transporting them to Finland.

The Finnish version of 'Countdown':
'I'll have a vowel, please. And another vowel. And another vowel. And another vowel. And another vowel...

The Czech version:
'I'll have a consonant, please. And another consonant. And another consonant. And another consonant...

The Irish version:
'What are these vowels and consonants of which you speak?'

>>The Irish version:
'What are these vowels and consonants of which you speak?'

Yes, I've met many Irish people who didn't know that y is a vowel in many words.

But W is a vowel in Welsh, and R, L and Z can all be vowels in Eastern European languages.

"vulgarity may be forgiven, but pretentiousness carries its own
heavy punishment."

I like that.

Kinglsey Amis divided all speakers of English into Berks and W**kers. Berks are ignorant people who don't how to talk properly, and W**kers are pretentious people who think you don't know how to talk properly.