I haven't had a minute to blog lately but I haven't gone away, just busy. These two gems of mangling of the English language came into my radar in recent days and I just couldn't let them pass without sharing. Such blatant assaults on the English language are something that bring out my inner anorak and inspire "word rage". Suffice to say - Lynne Truss, watch out! The kids call it an "Eats Shoots and Leaves" moment and they are probably right - I was always intolerant of the "Greengrocer's Apostrophe" of superfluous and misplaced possessive apostrophes where plurals were intended, and the newspaper headline seems to combine a number of atrocities!
The words you and yours (or you're!) and its variants seem to cause endless headaches - I know spell-checkers are a get out of jail card for many but in an editing situation surely letting a glaring grammatical faux-pas like this headline for the local elections pass into print is unforgiveable. I won't even identify the offending paper, to avoid unnecessary blushes. Suffice to say it ain't a million miles away from here!
The words you and yours (or you're!) and its variants seem to cause endless headaches - I know spell-checkers are a get out of jail card for many but in an editing situation surely letting a glaring grammatical faux-pas like this headline for the local elections pass into print is unforgiveable. I won't even identify the offending paper, to avoid unnecessary blushes. Suffice to say it ain't a million miles away from here! The other photo was seen in a college bar in Ireland and happily entreats the patrons to leave the premises "quitely" in order to respect the neighbours and young "familys". This might seem like I'm being even more pedantic than usual but I don't know how this got past proofing to printing at a signmakers, and as it did I despair for the standards of grammar in current usage. Now I sound like a right grumpy git, but believe me I had a good laugh at it.
And finally... I just had to share a photo of the lovely fruit hamper I won in the raffle at the show in Lismore some weeks back, A Night at the Movies, which was absolutely fabulous - staged by the Lismore Dramatic Society with a large cast of local talent - including our daughter and lots of other teenagers. They did song and dance selections from Grease, High School Musical, Hairspray and Mamma Mia and it ran for five nights over the May Bank Holiday weekend, for almost three hours a night. The standard was excellent (I know, I'm biased) and they played to a packed house each night, fully booked out in advance.
And finally... I just had to share a photo of the lovely fruit hamper I won in the raffle at the show in Lismore some weeks back, A Night at the Movies, which was absolutely fabulous - staged by the Lismore Dramatic Society with a large cast of local talent - including our daughter and lots of other teenagers. They did song and dance selections from Grease, High School Musical, Hairspray and Mamma Mia and it ran for five nights over the May Bank Holiday weekend, for almost three hours a night. The standard was excellent (I know, I'm biased) and they played to a packed house each night, fully booked out in advance. The Lismore Courthouse Theatre is a great intimate venue for the Dramatic Society plays and musicals, and shows how well the creative use of space works -it is also the venue for the local district court which sits monthly, some might say for more theatrical drama!
You can see the Courthouse in the photo at the top of my Blog - it's the big stone building with the clock tower and is at the heart of the town.
The theatre will host a number of the events at next month's Immrama Festival which I wrote about earlier here. Watch this space for more news on that great gig!
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13 comments:
Your and you're drive me nuts! I so hope in my rush to leave comments, I am not out there making that mistake.
I often get a laugh at the funny mistakes I see in signs.One that I saw outside a fruit shop read, "Junior wanted. Apple within." Unfortunately I know I am responsible for bad spelling and grammar blunders myself, which is a bit embarrassing when I'm a teacher.I have my own theory about why some people are poor spellers butit would take up too much space here.
Our Lismore has just suffered bad flooding.
Hi Catherine, I LOVE these crimes on grammar. I am just as pedantic as you are when it comes to the English language. You have just inspired me to post on a sign at a Pre-Primary school (I kid you not), Thanks for visiting my blog and telling me about your expat movements. I followed you via Lynda as well.In response to your question about what my husband is doing in the Sudan: he is Service Manager for an English plant hire company. A far cry from the normal gold mining camps he's been on before.
Hi again Catherine, I apologies; I forgot to congratulate you on winning the beautiful fruit hamper and on your daughter's stage performance. Well done!
Thank you for becoming a follower on my blog. I must spend more time on yours, as it looks very interesting. Please stop by often. Susan
Ha, I always notice grammar snafu's (somehow I never see my own until right when I hit "enter", then I have to scramble to edit it before someone sees).
Thanks for all the commments - it's amazing how many bloopers you see when you start taking notice!
DEBBIE - agree, the your and you're one are as bad as their, there and they're - all of which I've seen used interchangeably! Love your own blog,very witty and yet hits the spot when making a point - how do you get to keep on top of the number of comments you get - in the hundreds! Well done, you should write a book!
DIANE - I'm sure I make some grammatical blunders myself and have to think of the possessive apostrophe at times- apple's and apples is a big offender - the greengrocer's apostrophe seems to be the catch-all title for such gaffes! (or should that be greengrocers' apostrophe?!?) I'm sure people get a kick out of seeing language anoraks like me making a mistake - schadenfreude I think it's called!
DIANE - forgot to add - is that Lismore the one in north NSW? It's twinned with our Lismore if it is the same - there's one in Victoria as well, they came to play a cricket international against us in 2000!(and won, if memory serves me right!)
JO - thanks for your congrats, we have another drama show today - end of year for the local speech and drama school my daughter goes to after school, just for fun, it gives them great confidence. Glad you enjoyed the info on my former life in Africa, and that you got inspiration for a post from my one - have to look out for it!
SUSAN - thanks for your comment, and I hope you enjoy the posts though they are few and far between compared to what others are doing, I admire the daily bloggers, though I don't know where they get the energy. I will drop by your blog and comment as often as possible!
ROBIN - nothing worse than being a grammar perfectionist and then realising you made a big blunder on a post or mail yourself! Oh well pride comes before a fall and all that! My kids would say it's intolerant of me and of course that's probably true but then I think it's inexcusably lazy when people in the media don't proofread copy properly and the newspapers are full of glitches - as in the example above in the headline!
I have just stumbled across your blog and I must admit to finding it quite extraordinary that anyone nowadays should get worked up in the least by bad grammar, punctuation and/or spelling. What a waste of time and dwindling brain cells! Especially since every spell checker seems to be programmed with American spellings, and almost no two people speak in the same way or agree how English should be spoken, how can you expect the young or anyone else to learn to write in English English.
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