“January 2, 2014 – Archeologists are thrilled by an amazing find in China. Matt Sampson has the story of this wall that is much older than its more famous predecessor.” www.theweatherchannel.com
Category: Public Mistake
Aug 20
Lost in translation
Usually I don’t judge too harshly when I see translation errors while traveling. I appreciate the effort to provide information in English and can overlook misspelling and other sometimes-cute errors. However this caught my eye and deserves some criticism because it’s an awkward translation that a major international hotel chain is using. They clearly have …
Aug 08
The most unique
On vacation last month, I saw this tour bus. It illustrates a common problem with unique. According to Merriam-Webster, unique means sole or unequaled. A item either is unique, or it isn’t — there aren’t degrees to which an oil painting can be sole or unequaled, nor can a Halloween costume be more or less …
Jul 25
Vote for I
I’ve been reading my voter’s guide for the upcoming primary election and marveling at the number of candidate statements that are plagued by misspellings, voice inconsistencies, bad grammar and punctuation, and other distracting errors! After finding more than two mistakes in a candidate’s statement, I’ll skip ahead to consider the next candidate. I don’t want …
Jan 13
Your and You’re
David and I had dinner in Stephenville, Texas last week and saw this sign in the parking lot. Sometimes mistakes are so big that you literally must take a step back to see them! Use you’re only as a contraction of you are: you’re late for breakfast, you’re angry with Lucinda, you’re only as good …
Oct 23
Punctuation Pain
The tiny apostrophe can hurt like a splinter. There are several of these “Sunday’s Only” parking signs in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are common enough in casual use, but when they make their way into permanent, official signage the confusion and uncertainty among the masses are reinforced. Charlottesville takes pride in …