GrammarBlog

Mocking Poor Grammar
Since 2007

A noun that is formed from a verb and which describes an action. In English it ends in -ing, eg 'the baking of bread' and 'Smoking damages your health'.

Hide these tips

Electronic’S – R – US

Abuse in Signage, Apostrophe Abuse, Punctuation, Typography

Posted by Tom on 16th June, 2008

Electronic’S – R – US, originally uploaded by Dan of Future’s Past.

This is a horror show of a sign.

It always irks me how “toysRus” turned a repugnantly illiterate phrase into a brand name, so I obviously hate to see it copied. When combined with apostrophe abuse, this causes my eyelid to twitch à la the captain from Police Academy.

I post this in the knowledge that fellow GrammarBlogger Tom (should we begin to employ GrammarBlog as a surname when referring to a member of our fraternity?) will be horrified at yet another unwise application of the Bank Gothic typeface.

• Permalink

7 Comments »

1. Wow, you really feel strongly about this. Bet my Lang. Arts teacher would, too. But that IS really messed up.P.S. Sorry if my grammer sucks! >_<

   Comment by Emerika — 18th June, 2008 @ 12:43 am

2. A wonderful blog you have. I have a little one of my own, mostly about apostrophe abuse. If you would be interested in exchanging links, here’s mine: http://abusedapostrophes.blogspot.com/Carry on the good fight!The Punctuator

   Comment by The Punctuator — 18th June, 2008 @ 6:38 am

3. I’m actually sort of fond of the “R us” construction–it somehow makes me think of the 1920s or something. Don’t ask me why.I just hate having the argument w/ the novices over the stupid backwards R in ToysRUs. And the disparity between the logo design and the company name (which they consistently use as Toys “R” Us). You asked, parenthetically: (should we begin to employ GrammarBlog as a surname when referring to a member of our fraternity?)We few, we happy few, we band of brothers!I vote yes–it’s a brotherhood/sisterhood, right?Gez GrammarBlog has a nice ring to it.In fact, I sort of like the idea of giving every blogger their own surname. (Of course, I’m in trouble, bcs I’ll be TootsNYC TootsNYC.)

   Comment by TootsNYC — 18th June, 2008 @ 4:13 pm

4. Toots,I love this:”You asked, parenthetically:(should we begin to employ GrammarBlog as a surname when referring to a member of our fraternity?)“I love that you have obviously spent time considering that construction.I can imagine you pondering whether to keep the parentheses and use quotation marks or to drop one. Employing italics to allow you to drop the quotation marks, thereby avoiding an awkward “( construction, was a master-stroke.

   Comment by GrammarBlog — 19th June, 2008 @ 1:45 pm

5. I’d have said ‘masterstroke’.

   Comment by Tom — 19th June, 2008 @ 10:10 pm

6. I also hate the ubiquitious deliberate “cute” misspellings of words, e.g., kwick, kountry. Did you know that over here in the states we have a chain of convenience stores called “Kum ‘n’ Go”?

   Comment by Iron "GeekGirl" Misty — 16th August, 2008 @ 9:20 pm

7. Dear Sir,I believe your “a la the captain” is redundant and suggest “a la captain” as a revision.Cheers

   Comment by mooksie — 7th September, 2008 @ 6:07 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment