As a writer, I tend to edit the world. I see misuses or misspellings of words whether I want to or not. When I see, for instance, Rich Johnston–in his latest “Lying in the Gutters”–use the phrase “reign it in” instead of the correct “rein it in,” I just shake my head and sigh.
But every so often I notice stuff that really just drives me nuts. For instance, in checking my PO box, I received a flier from the Bayport Library system. What do they advertise as a movie they’re going to be running this month?
“Oaklahoma!”
Now if they’d advertised “South Pasific” or “Carosel,” it would merely be annoying. But “Oklahoma!” features a title song that SPELLS THE ÐÃMNÊÐ TITLE.
Oh brother.
PAD
• 
Boy, ever since Eckels stepped on that butterfly….
I feel your pain. As a Navy instructor I’ve been taught public speaking. Ever since I have diffulctly watching someone speak without Critiquing them to death
Hey, maybe it’s ACTUALLY about ‘Oak-lahoma’–Land of the Ancient Druids….
…speaking of editing…I double posted…*sigh*
Oh well. At least the playhouse itself isn’t actually in Oklahoma. Then we’d have to break out the napalm.
On a serious note, you’re not the only one who edits the world. I do it too. I’ve had professors glare at me because I corrected their grammar in the middle of class.
I probably ought to stop doing that.
Oh brother.
Oh Kalkutta.
You love that reign/rein thing, don’t you? Still, it taught me a lesson. Pays to get the Gospel of Good England out there.
PAD: As a writer, I tend to edit the world. I see misuses or misspellings of words whether I want to or not.
Do yourself a favor: if you’re ever in Augusta, GA (and I hope you never are; this place bites), don’t drive the downtown/Washington Rd. strip. The misspellings and grammatical errors on our billboards and marquees will make your brain squirt out your ears.
That OTHER John Byrne
I hear ya, PAD. Spelling errors are always glaring back at me from the page. Except my own; I hate nothing more than discovering my own spelling errors after the fact. They make me wince. Of course, so do others’ gaffs, but they don’t hold themselves to the same standard I do myself.
There’s a Buzz Lightyear quote that suits this best…
… and to top it off, it’s a flyer mailed to you from a library. o.O
What really sucks is having that trait and also dating a girl with similar habits. Granted, she was also a teacher. It really hurt when I found old, rushed “love letters” with red circles and corrections.
As for speech, I had a professor who was in the middle of a book on speech and pattern changes throughout the country. Then he gave an oral final. Bášŧárd. Now THAT was pressure. He really harped on the whole “forte” being pronounced “fort” unless you’re talking about music. The PAD rein/reign thing just reminds me of that.
Boy, ever since Eckels stepped on that butterfly….
Snort…
It could be pratchett… Oooklahoma.
I live in that state, and I’ve finally given up. What do we have? Football and a musical. And a depressing book by Steinbeck. Oh, and Garth Brooks, Reba McIntire, Chuck Norris, Ron Howard, James Garner and a bunch of other people came from here. Whoopeee.
Well, wait a sec. We did have Ralph Ellison.
Misspellings, which I do quite often, are the worst (getting back to the subject)… the worst I have seen was in Kalispell, MT. And the reason why it was the worst was because it was intentional.
The place was called:
Snappy Sports Senter.
I spent fifteen minutes bìŧçhìņg out the manager telling him what a disservice they were doing to the English Language for alliteration’s sake. To no avail. It’s still there.
Travis
The one that always gets me–and I see it more and more often, lately–is when people use “it’s” when they really mean “its”, and vice versa. Makes me grind my teeth every time!
My personal fave though was our local Calvary Church of Christ advertising their Sunday sermon for this week: Giving thanks to Jesus Crist. Almost stopped to let them know but figured their god would get them for it later.
“Wisconsin” was misspelled on my diploma from the University of Wisconsin.
One other thing, which Travis’ post above brought to mind: years ago in Maryland, there was a religious daycare center near my house, and they had their name painted on their window, so I saw it every time I passed by. It read:
Kiddie
Khristian
Kollege
!
I am not making this up.
To say nothing of the fact the owner deliberately misspelled the name of his own religion for the sake of alliteration, or of the fact that the other deliberate misspelling was of the word “college”, the initials spelled out by the name were just a bit too much to handle. It was all I could do to avoid hurling a rock through the window…
I had a co-worker who insisted on shipping ‘oxygent’ cylinders and ‘looner’ helmets. No, not for trips to the moon, just loaners. *sigh*
Click my name for the number one library typo emblazed on your choice of clothing, in this case boxer shorts.
I don’t know how sad it is, but I missed the typo the first time I read it. (via the Laughing Librarian: http://www.laughinglibrarian.com/)
When I was at college, I saw a group of teachers protesting at a proposed low pay settlement.
Two of the signs they were carrying read:
“3% of nothing is nothing! We want 4%!”
and
“Education is a right, not a privelege”
… and is it even worth talking about Internet misspellings?
Yesterday I got one of the typical eBay spam scams (in my Hotmail account, no less — usually, they screen pretty well), with an “Urget” message from “eBay Costumers Service”.
*sigh*
Do they really think I’d miss that?
Try living here. I don’t know if half the people know how to spell it.
Reason
There’s a bus stop in DuBois, PA, outside a small plaza, and depending on whether you gauge by the sign above the store or the sign by the entrance that lists all the businesses, there is either a laundromat or a laundramat. The signs appear to have been made at the same time and are in the same style, so I’m a bit baffled as to how they could get one right and one wrong.
Huk’t awn fonix wurk’t 4 mee.
Faith No More: There’s a Buzz Lightyear quote that suits this best…
“To infinity and beyond”???
If misspellings bother you, going on the Internet must be painful every time. There’s something about email and blogs that makes people completely carefree when it comes to spelling mistakes. (I try to avoid this, but I succumb at times.)
And as a comic book fan, I’m pìššëd every time I see an article or review for “Spiderman.” It’s SPIDER-MAN and has been for 40+ years now! People who write “Spiderman” should have to make their first and last names into one non-hyphenated word.
It could always be that long-rumored Thundarr the Barbarian hour long special where Thundarr & crew visit the land of the Moks.
Yes, it’s “Ooklahoma”.
Travis,
You have to do what all good Oklahomans who want a different life do: move to Dallas/Ft. Worth. There’s more people than in all of the state of Oklahoma, and it’s still within driving distance when you get the urge to see a Sooner football game 🙂
PAD,
The things that drive me crazy:
– a few years ago top management at GE Aerospace sent out a message which, among other things, told people to pay attention to avoid inadvertant errors.
– I don’t know how many times I have seen the usage “comprised of” instead of comprising when the usage could have been “composed of”
– it drives me nuts when I see that something impacts something else. A wisdom tooth can be impacted, but impact is not a synonym for affect.
Okay, I’m better now.
Dennis
You have to do what all good Oklahomans who want a different life do: move to Dallas/Ft. Worth. There’s more people than in all of the state of Oklahoma, and it’s still within driving distance when you get the urge to see a Sooner football game 🙂
ack. thpfft. yuck. Mark, you said the bad phrase — “Sooner football game”
Now basketball, that’s where it’s at. Specifically Eddie Sutton basketball.
I looked at moving to Dallas/FW but I came up with a problem.
I can’t stand the heat in this state as it is, why would I want to move south?
Travis
I always have a problem when people write “your” when they should use “you’re.” It just bugs me. I don’t know why.
People who say “irregardless.” I think this may be the only single- word double-negative in the universe. Then again, it’s easy to build a better idiot.
On a local forum that I visit one can read the two newest contractions added to the English language: ‘Could of’ (could’ve) and ‘should of’ (should’ve). In an ironic twist (if you’re a fan of irony do *not* visit Muskegon, MI) they never seem to use ‘would of.’ Go figure.
Then there is the friend from my California days who would always tell me how something was ‘orientated.’
Now I have a co-worker who so savagely butchers the English language (both written and spoken) that one year for Xmas I bought our department a dictionary as a sort of gag. I have spent the last couple of years filling it with his ‘Carson-isms’ as that is his last name. The best part is that it’s like he’s spelling with an accent. Ah, the things you see or hear when you don’t have a stick.
I think I’ll write them all to my computer so as to share them with you all, that is if it’s ok PAD and yonder web-master.
Salutations,
Mitch
P.S.
Now go find all of my spelling errors.
And another thing…
I used to think that the spell check function would just make people lazy. Now I wish more people would use it so that I understand just what in the Hëll they are talking about.
(Ok, counting to ten, letting the rage flow away, and getting used to seeing my inner child lying in a puddle of his own piss and blood!!!)
Ahhhh, That’s better.
Salutations, Part 2: The Revenge,
Mitch
My personal favourite “evil typo” happened this past spring to Masthead, Canada’s trade publication for the magazine industry. The put together a special issue for the industry trade show that they ran, a trade show which attracts industry experts from all over Canada and the rest of North America…
and misspelled their own name as ‘Mashead’ ON THE COVER OF THEIR MAGAZINE!
To their credit, I think they turned it into a ‘spot the typo, win a prize’ thing. Either way, they have made sure that images from that particular cover are not easy to come by.
Sabrina
YES, the “Spiderman” thing is very annoying (as are a lot of the other things brought up here; those alliterative signs – the latter one is insane). I did notice a lot more – to tangent off thought, but not off subject -“alot” really bugs me. If it’s just a “cute” little written word evolution thing, like “lol” or something, I suppose that’s one thing. But I think “alot” may actually be considered proper grammer by a sadly large number of people. It’s not a word! No more than “afew,” “abunch,” or “aton!” Aaarg! Ahem …. Anyway, “a lot” more media outlets seemed to spelling “Spider-Man” properly after the movie came out, and hoped that the problem might fade away. But, as time has passed, I’ve noticed mispellings of the name start to pop up again. One day recently, I was pleased to notice “Spider-Man” on the local news – in regard to that guy climbing the building, I believe – and was shortly bemused to read “Spiderman” on CNN. WIXT knows better than CNN; a little embarassing ….
Yes, I know I misspelled “misspellings” (funnily enough) – and it was supposed to be “I hoped that the problem …”, but my post disappeared every time I clicked “back” from previewing, so I had no choice but to post with typos or re-write the whole thing. Oh well.
Glenn: It could always be that long-rumored Thundarr the Barbarian hour long special where Thundarr & crew visit the land of the Moks.
Yes, it’s “Ooklahoma”.
Oh, come off it, Glenn… Everybody knows Ookla is just a lame Chewbacca rip-off.
Hmm… “Chewbacclahoma”… sounds Chewbacclariffic!
tOjb
One of my favorites was at Chase bank, they sent arount a flier for an open position, one of the requirements for the job was “excellent speling”. Sadly, only 1 other person in my department noticed this without having it pointed out to them.
Leave us not forget that Will Rogers hailed rfom Oklahoma.
If the only memorable things associated with that state were he, the perennial musical, and The Grapes of Wrath… dayenu.
Just for grins, though did a fast Googlew search and got this data:
Johnny Bench – baseball player, Oklahoma City
John Berryman – poet, MacAlester
Garth Brooks – singer, Tulsa
Jeremy Castle – singer, Blanchard
Iron Eyes Cody – Cherokee actor
Gordon Cooper – astronaut, Shawnee
Ralph Ellison – writer, Oklahoma City
James Garner – actor, Norman
Owen K. Garriott – astronaut, Enid
Vince Gill – singer, Norman
Chester Gould – cartoonist, Pawnee
Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie – singer, composer, Okemah
Ike, Taylor, & Zac Hanson – music, Tulsa
Roy Harris – composer, Lincoln Cty
Paul Harvey – broadcaster, Tulsa
Van Heflin – actor, Walters
Tony Hillerman – author, Sacred Heart
Ron Howard – actor, director, Duncan
Karl Guthe Jansky – engineer, Norman
Ben Johnson – actor, Pawhuska
Jennifer Jones – actress, Tulsa
Jeane Kirkpatrick – diplomat, Duncan
Shannon Lucid – astronaut, Bethany
Mickey Charles Mantle – baseball player, Spavinaw
Reba McEntire – singer, McAlester
Shannon Miller – Olympic gymnast, Edmond
Bill Moyers – journalist, Hugo
Daniel Patrick Moynihan – N.Y. senator, Tulsa
Patti Page – singer, Clarence
Brad Pitt – actor Shawnee
Tony Randall – actor, Tulsa
Oral Roberts – evangelist, Ada
Dale Robertson – actor, Oklahoma City
Will Rogers – humorist, Oologah
Dan Rowan – comedian, Beggs
Robert Stemmons – whistler, Tulsa
Maria Tallchief – ballerina, Fairfax
James Francis Jim Thorpe – Olympic athlete, Prague
Jeanne Tripplehorn – actress, Tulsa
Ted Shackleford – actor, Tulsa
Wilma Mankiller – Cherokee chief, Tahlequah
Seeing Hanson given accord equal to Woody Guthrie is unnerving. And they missed listing Chuck Norris, probably among others.
This seems a good opportunity to put the link to Strong Bad’s email for those who haven’t seen them:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html
Strong Bad’s always pretty good about ruthlessly mocking spelling and grammatical errors in the messages he answers. Last week (“local news”), the episode ended with a Flash button that opens up an album on which Strong Bad sings about various common grammatical mistakes, “Strong Bad’s Rhythm and Grammar.” It’s hi-larious.
It’s pretty satisfying to those of us with this mindset, though he does make his own mistakes from time to time.
Even worse than signs or internet postings is the lack of proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation in published novels. This is most evident in the new wave of “print-on-demand” books that are, apparently, not edited, but published as received. A recent book that I read in order to interview the author for “Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction” contained no less than 288 errors in a book that was only 144 pages long.
Several hours ago, I was at a web site that had a comic strip in which the punchline involves “Animal Farm”. The person then comments that it is the Orson Welles book. I had to send an e-mail stating that George Orwell was the author.
As for spelling errors (something that I am only too guilty of), the one that still stays with me happened at a flower shop in which the clerk spelt Connecticut as Konnecticut. I’m hoping she’s from Cansas.
Hurricane Heeran
PAD, I feel your pain. What burns my ášš is when people spell the contraction of “you are” as “your” instead of the proper “you’re.”
Also, when you’re pluralizing a word (i.e., such as book), and people spell it w/ an apostrophe (“book’s”) instead of “books.”
The hëll of it? These two mistakes are so dámņëd common, it’s being accepted as correct.
**Yesterday I got one of the typical eBay spam scams (in my Hotmail account, no less — usually, they screen pretty well), with an “Urget” message from “eBay Costumers Service”.
*sigh*
Do they really think I’d miss that?
Posted by joelfinkle**
Actually, a lot of spam mailers purposely misspell words like “Urgent”, “Prescription”, “Viagra” and many more so that spam filters that look for these words won’t catch them.
And speaking of (real-life and) fictional people from Oklahoma, one could also mention Maurice Minniefield (Northern Exposure) and Michael J. Doonesbury and his folks.
Header on an e-mail from Yahoo in my Yahoo mailbox
“Boost You Career with Online Education – Yahoo! Courses & Degrees”
I guess that’s the quality of online schools.
David
JoelFinkle: Yesterday I got one of the typical eBay spam scams (in my Hotmail account, no less — usually, they screen pretty well)…
Luigi Novi: I keep my Hotmail Inbox set to “Exclusive,” Joel. The only mail I get are from addresses already in my Address Book (or as Hotmail calls it now, my Contact List). Make it somewhat difficult to sign up for certain mailing lists that I want to be on, or to get an order confirmation when I order something from Amazon.com, (I need to know the address the mailing or order confirmation will come from, meaning I have to temporarily take it off the Exclusive setting, and then put it back after I get the mail), but at least spam isn’t a problem for me.
“… and to top it off, it’s a flyer mailed to you from a library. o.O”
I have a video clip of a frustrated Carleton University (Ottawa) English professor tearing up a TV GUIDE page featuring an advertisement for an event promoting LITERACY. The ad had two grammatical errors and spelled actor Christopher Plummer as “Plumber”.
“Snappy Sports Senter.
I spent fifteen minutes bìŧçhìņg out the manager …”
At least the manager is there to yell at. What about a major chain which mangles the language for the sake of being ‘cute’? “Kidz” and
“Mark’s Work Wearhouse” come to mind and, no, I’ve never set foot in them. Just too annoyed to even consider it.
“I think “alot” may actually be considered proper grammer by a sadly large number of people.”
Sounds like French where all too many supposedly literate people have taken “ma tante” (my aunt) and made a word out of it such that they now refer to “ma matante.” Feh.
Yesterday I got one of the typical eBay spam scams (in my Hotmail account, no less — usually, they screen pretty well
Goto Download.com and get InboxCop.
Works fairly well…
Travis
Actually I think that constructive criticism can be a positive. I submitted a post a while back and asked you about your nom de guerre David Peters. You answered my inquiry but also informed me that nom de plume would be the correct way to refer to your David Peters pen name.
As long as I try to learn something new every day I am improving.
Thanks.
Warren S. Jones III