funny signs
A certain downtown lunch spot has this sign posted in the window:
try a hot stuffed potatoe*
Is Dan Quayle creating signs now?
I know we've had grammar debates on this blog, but what do you think about such silly mistakes? I'm amazed at the number of spelling errors or grammar errors in signs, on menus and in other promotional literature. Sometimes mistakes are understandable. We know the difference between its and it's, but how many of us have -- when exhausted, distracted or just rushed -- substituted the wrong homonym?
This sign has been there for months. I noticed it right away, but I never remember to say something to the owner/manager/employees.
Do you get annoyed by poorly worded signs? Any memorable ones out there?
*I'm paraphrasing. I'll get the exact wording when I venture out for lunch.
posted by Stepfanie at 9:31 AM
12 Comments:
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WestEnder said...
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Post a Comment*One of my favorite delis sells a cheese from "Whales."
Gotta be hard to milk one of those!
I remember being in a grocery store in Brooklyn and a sign read -- "We serving natural chickens from now on"
Glad someone else is annoyed/amused by them! It drives me nuts to have signs that say something like this:
John Morrell Hot
Dogs 69 cents
Why can't they put Hot Dogs on one line? (trust me, there was room!).
My favorite sign is from Korea, during the bird flu scare: "KFC is safe for consumption."
I'm not so sure about that...
Runner-up: A coffee shop called "Yesterday's Coffee." Is it cold? Half-off?
I like to go to Saigon Market at Findlay Market and read the descriptions on the soaps and beauty items that are supposed to be written in English. Hilarious. Yeah, it's not exactly time well spent, but it amuses me all the same.
I travel to Iowa a lot for week, and on a recent trip the temperature was 11 below zero. As I was shivering in my rental car on the way to work, I passed a McDonald's that said "Try our Iced Coffee"!
I was like people, no....your marketing person should be fired. There is no way we should be pushing iced coffee when it is this cold. At that point I was thinking about pouring some hot coffee over my hands to warm them up. It did make me chuckle a little.
when in doubt, add an apostrophe....lol.
John in the LAT41015: ooh, the errant apostrophe!
I love it when people add apostrophe's to sentence's. Yikes!
Have you read this story?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/nyregion/18semicolon.html?_r=1&em&ex=1203570000&en=dc3cd0cc8983eb99&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin
Boy, did you hit on my pet peeve! (Of course, as a college prof, it's a professional hazard for me.) It amazes me how many people confuse its or it's and your and you're. I specifically remember Mrs. Evans teaching us in the 2nd grade that if you can use the two words in the sentence, you use the version with the apostrophe. People who trust their computer's spell checker too much is another one. I got a letter yesterday "thanking everyone for their patients." But the ultimate is my student who repeatedly wrote in her paper how much she learned in my "Pubic Speaking" class!
On apostrophes: When I lived in Hong Kong an editor friend asked if it was some weird British convention to use "it's" instead of "its" since it was so prevalent.
And one of my all-time favorites:
"Stuffed Crap" on Chinese menus (instead of "crabs"!)
Mm, I'll have the crap please!
Stepf, I read that article yesterday and posted it on my facebook page. I loved that article. The guy used a semicolon correctly and he's a citywide hero.
The "potatoe" sign at Fresh is especially amusing because the owner is so pretentious. I can imagine him threatening to sue everyone involved in making it, from the designer to the printer, to the person who hung it in the window, even everyone who has read it and not pointed it out to him. You better watch out Stepf!
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