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Mocking Poor Grammar
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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'.

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ParenT’s

Abuse in Signage, Apostrophe Abuse

Posted by Gez on 15th October, 2008

apostrophecity, originally uploaded by the.kingfish.

We’ve hit the mother lode! Inappropriate capitalisation, misplaced apostrophes (of course) and quotation marks used for emphasis.

Note how increasingly wayward the single quotation marks get; by the end of the notice they’re almost like parentheses.

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13 Comments »

1. And for crying out loud, don’t let them grow up to be ( Cowboy’s )

   Comment by Kev Orng — 15th October, 2008 @ 5:33 pm

2. Nice! We’ve had references to Alan Partridge, Dumb and Dumber, Three Amigos and quite a few different song lyrics, but I think that’s the first Willie Nelson reference we’ve had in a comment. We should start a meme.

   Comment by Gez — 15th October, 2008 @ 6:20 pm

3. I wouldn’t let my kids near anywhere with signs like that.Er, if I had kids.

   Comment by pauldwaite — 15th October, 2008 @ 9:38 pm

4. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Wow.

   Comment by Martin Magnusson — 16th October, 2008 @ 5:46 am

5. “Motherload”?”Mother lode”, surely?–c.

   Comment by Clive — 16th October, 2008 @ 4:54 pm

6. Well done, Clive. You spotted my deliberate mistake and earned yourself 14 GrammarBlog points (the shiny variety). Further points are available to anyone who chooses to swallow the “deliberate mistake” explanation over the “hasty and careless” alternative.

   Comment by Gez — 16th October, 2008 @ 6:30 pm

7. Old people do this a LOT….. In my building, there’s an old guy who is forever trying to unload stuff in his place, and he posts notices advsing fellow tenants of a “Big” Furniture Sale!All items must “GO”!Entertainment unit $500 “O.B.O”

   Comment by Michelle Wood — 26th October, 2008 @ 7:53 am

8. This is a true shocker, but the newsletter my kids bring back from their primary school is getting close.The most upsetting (well, you know what I mean…) example was in last week’s (inappropriately named) Literacy update which thanked “all the hero’s who helped with their childs’ reading this week”, adding (after a splice comma) “keep it up”. Yeah, thanks. I’ll leave it to the expert’s (sic).

   Comment by Dan — 29th October, 2008 @ 9:15 pm

9. Another deliberate mistake, perhaps: The sign does not have quotation marks used for emphasis, rather parentheses. Good find!

   Comment by AliHartnett — 9th November, 2008 @ 3:58 am

10. Wow. To know there are people who produce such vomit inducing specimens makes me very sad.

    Comment by Sarah — 9th November, 2008 @ 10:43 pm

11. i like your blog. funny. informative.

    Comment by turtle — 15th November, 2008 @ 4:47 pm

12. I really hope this sign isn’t from a school!

    Comment by Katie — 16th November, 2008 @ 9:37 pm

13. If only such errors were limited to the elderly, Michelle! Sadly, the same sign could easily have been produced by one of my teenage students.

    Comment by Rachel — 19th November, 2008 @ 3:24 pm

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