Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 04.18.04 in bad grammar, complaints, pictures
I’ve been wanting to post this for the longest time but never got around to it, but now it’s Saturday and I finished my English homework about a half hour ago, so I have the time (and ambition) to do it. Plus, Taryn keeps on yelling at me for not updating.
Totally unrelated to what I was just saying, my keyboard just clicked on and off. Odd.
Now then, digressing. I live in Clearwater; it’s the Largo to Palm Harbor and the Inverness to Pinellas Park. It’s medium ground in terms of economic stability, economy, and general public knowledge. I hold my fellow Clearwatereans to a fairly liberal standard when it comes to their education and the manner in which they convey their thoughts and advertisements. Sure, if in a classified ad I see an accidental apostrophe put on a word that is meant to be pluralized, I note the mistake and read on – in the words of Mike Meyers on coffee talk, “no big whoop.”
But this is beyond my tolerance level. I’ve been driving past this building on the corner of Old Coachman and Belcher for years now, and when I’m at the stop light in front of it, I play sort of a game with myself to see if I can spot all of the mistakes in the sign. Granted, there are no actual grammatical errors aside from the name of the business being in all caps, but the fact that whoever owns AMERICAN HOME MORTGAGE cannot fasten letters correctly to a building simply makes me stammer with anger. I would have expected more from my fellow citizens. I’ll point out all of the mistakes in the sign for you now:
1. The first “M” is backwards.
2. The first “E” is upside-down.
3. The first “C” is upside-down.
4. The second “A” is backwards.
5. The second “M” is backwards.
6. The second “E” is upside-down.
7. The third “M” is backwards.
8. The third “E” is upside-down.
Although, those two little American flags make up for everything. They must not be terrorists.
Bologna
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 04.06.04 in bad grammar, random
Merriam Webster defines it as “a large smoked sausage of beef, veal, and pork; also : a sausage made (as of turkey) to resemble bologna.” And I would agree – its bologna.
But it’s pronounced “baloney.” Come to think of it, Merriam Webster also defines such a word in that whimsical book of theirs: “pretentious nonsense : BUNKUM — often used as a generalized expression of disagreement.”
So, what we have on our hands here are two different words! Up until five minutes ago, I thought it was “bologna” in all contexts. Like, for example, when that Flick character on A Christmas Story argues with Shwartz about the notion that his tongue would stick to the flagpole, he cries (phonetically), “BALL-OH-NEE!” For sixteen years I always thought it would have to have been written “bologna” in the script, and for sixteen years I thought that such a spelling would be outrageously aesthetically unpleasing. Now I have been shown the light.
But what about other uses of bologna, not necessarily relating to pretentious nonsense? Admit it, it’s a funny word, but you’re telling me, Mr. Webster, that I’m supposed to spell it like you say even when I know full well that’s not how it sounds? When one uses the word “bologna” in somewhat humorous ways, I find that it takes away from the comedy when one spells it as if it were a deli meat.
So, here I am, submitting that whenever we aren’t talking about meat or a city in Italy, we spell it “baloney.”
QED
Chinese Insanity
[ 5 Comments ] Posted on 02.04.04 in bad grammar, family
The actual fortunes from the fortune cookies included with the Chinese food my family ordered last night:
…sigh.