Tag Archives: English usage

Speling Is a Lost Airt

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I don’t normally bother to point out spelling errors in New York City signs, but every once in a while I can’t help myself. Why would someone have a sign professionally printed without running it through spell-check? I admit that spell-check is far from perfect, but still. A glance would have been enough to save this sign from over-consonance:

It would be nice to think that the sign-maker chose “dinning” to emphasize noise-level issues. I’ve often drowned a scarf in sauce while leaning over the table to catch one or two syllables. The background music and the shouts of other diners (dinners?) can be deafening! Alas, I don’t think that was the intention. On the plus side, the hyphens in “off-the-beaten-path” are correct.

Another instance of over-consonance:

When I saw this sign I immediately thought of Nagini, Voldemort’s pet snake. Read it aloud and listen for the hiss in “occassions.” I assume the sign-maker speaks Parseltongue, the snake language of the Harry Potter series.

The consonants are fine in this one, but not the vowels. The sign does, however, accurately reflect the feeling New York’s construction inspires in those of us navigating the city’s sidewalks:

If you’re overwhelmed after exiting the walkway, perhaps you’ll consider dinning out, with a sheet cake to mark the occassion.

Et Tu, NYT?

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I once offered my students extra credit for every grammar error they found in print. Fairly soon I was forced to exclude mistakes from a couple of newspapers. Had I not done so, every kid would have received an A+. It was just too easy! But The New York Times was different. Finding a poorly worded sentence there was tough — then. Now, I’m not so sure.

Here’s a pull-quote that should have been pulled before it hit the screen or page:

Gentile?

What a difference one extra letter makes! I’m not going to speculate about the nature of “gentile” affirmations or how they differ from Jewish affirmations. Instead, I will proceed to another lapse in grammatical judgment.

This pull-quote comes from an obituary:

Surf that was used for D-Day?

I hadn’t realized that it was possible to “use” a surf, let alone “for D-Day.” Misplaced modifier, anyone?

One more, from my archives:

Printed before Amazon selected sites in Virginia and New York.

“Square foot modern.” A new architectural style?

In fairness to my local paper, I have to forgive the editors who overlooked these mistakes. No one’s perfect. As we all know, to err is humane.

Presented Without Comment

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Actually, presented with only a little comment are these signs and the questions they raised when I saw them. The first involves finance:

4 – 7 p.m.?

I can only hope that the bartender doesn’t get paid by the (happy) hour, which runs from 4 to 7 p.m. I’ve given up correcting signs announcing that you get one cocktail when you buy one. What they really mean is that you get a second cocktail for free if you pay for the first one, but I won’t bother pointing that out. Seriously. I won’t even mention it.

To enter this construction site you need a helicopter:

How do you “sign at 2nd floor first” without passing through the ground floor? I’m giving the sign-writer a pass on “everyone enter” and “be orientated.”

Last one comes from a restaurant for people with extra-strong teeth:

Lacking hyphens, the four adjectives run together and provide interesting food for thought, which is the only sort of food they’re offering, according to this sign. Is it a batch-market or market-fresh? I don’t know or care, but I would prefer not to eat plates, even if they’re made from local clay, scooped out and kiln-fired at the height of the pottery season.

Nouning

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Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, says that “verbing weirds language.” So does nouning, my term for changing another part of speech into a noun. I’m not necessarily against the practice, but I must admit that these signs made me pause. (Paused me?) First up is a sign from an outpost of a coffee empire that will remain nameless:

A handcrafted?

The chalk is a bit smudged, but the intent is clear. Buy “a handcrafted” after eleven and you get a cheaper (but not cheap) “lunch item.” I wonder whether employees discuss their favorite handcrafts while they’re on lunch-item break.

Moving on:

A good what?

Yes, I cropped the photo, but no, I didn’t cut any words. Nothing appeared with “daily” except clouds. I snapped this one a couple of years ago, and I still haven’t figured out what it means. Theories welcome.

Last one:

I don’t shop for new “wears” at the dry cleaners, but maybe I should. I’m going to a wedding in a couple of weeks, and even an imperfect wear would come in handy. If you have any cocktail wears you don’t need, let me know. In the meantime, have a good daily.

Happy Halloween!

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Before or after you hit the trick-or-treat trail, take a minute to enjoy  these holiday photos. This one comes from my friend Milton:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Punking” seems perfectly suited to the “trick” part of the Halloween slogan, don’t you think?

Mary Shelley’s famous novel, Frankenstein, is also a good fit for this holiday. The Morgan Library has a fine exhibit celebrating the 200th anniversary of the monster, who, by the way, has no name and is actually much less monstrous than most of the human characters in the book. (Frankenstein is the name of the doctor who sewed body parts together and animated the creature.) I learned a lot from the exhibition, including this information about early theatrical performances of the classic work:

Leave it to Mary Shelley, inventive in so many ways, to add an apostrophe and the letter S to a row of hyphens to create a possessive form of “the unnameable.”

Once Halloween is over and you’re fighting sugar rush and paying dental bills, you might plan for another holiday, one that tends to be stressful. Show this sign — sent by my friends Pilar, Naomi, and Aracelly — to any of your unruly offspring:

“Behave or I’ll drop you off.” Simple but effective! But before your kids call Children’s Protective Services, be sure to explain that you’re just punking them.

I Give Up

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After decades of bellyaching about the sad state of NYC signs, I have officially given up  — on some issues, not on all. Grammarian in the City will no longer object to the following:

As far as I’m concerned, BOGO all you want. I once thought that the concept of “buy one get one” was an unnecessary statement of the standard deal between buyer and seller. But now I see that most BOGO-users are too busy surfing social media to add an “F,” for “free.” Or maybe they think that BOGOF sounds like a mediocre brand of caviar. I commend this sign-writer for specifying the terms of the deal, spelling out “buy one get one” for “50% Off,” though strictly speaking the sign should read “BOGAOF50%O” (buy one get another one for 50% off). I concede that such a sign resembles the kind of password people concoct and promptly forget. I will, however, raise an objection to “tight.” I  prefer to cover both legs with “tights,” not just one with a “FREE tight.” And $75 is a little steep, don’t you think?

I’ve also thrown in the towel when it come to hyphens:

My first glimpse of this truck made we wonder whether Bunsen burners are prone to out-of-control blazes. If so, I thought, there is certainly a need for “scientific-fire prevention.” But perhaps this company pursues customers who prefer that the laws of physics take priority in battling flames? That meaning would call for “scientific fire-prevention.” Whatever. I’m done with fulminating about hyphenating.

Nor will I say one word about the silliness of this sort of sign:

Okay, just a couple of words: Is there anyone who believes that amateurs rent stores, buy equipment, and have signs painted so that they can repair “hand-bags,” zippers,” and “luggage”?  Judging from the trend to specify “professional” dry-cleaning, barbering, and other services, I guess the answer is yes. No matter. I don’t care. I can even live with this sign’s reference to moribund footwear (“dying” not “dyeing”).

Inaccurate acronyms, missing hyphens, and dead shoes:  This “professional” grammarian has given up on them all.

What’s Open?

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When my son was little, we couldn’t walk down our block without having the baker rush over with a piece of bread, the dry cleaner offer candy, and the deli clerk donate a cookie. Toddler paradise! When I walk down that same street with my granddaughter, her experience is different. So many stores have closed! E-commerce and, I’ve read, some unwise rent laws have led to a surge in vacancies. What’s open, and when? These signs offer absolutely no help:

Given this timetable, I expect another empty storefront soon. Here’s another:

I’m happy about the “Grand Open”; at least the storefront isn’t vacant. I do wonder whether the $29 price includes both feet. I also wonder how long after the “grand open” I’ll see this sort of sign:

Near where the “out business” used to be is this sign, professionally printed and posted all over a building under construction:

According to the dictionary, “amenities” are “desirable or useful features of a building or a place.”  This sign is okay — grammatically, at least. Winding through scaffolding to play billiards or to sit near a communal wine cellar before your apartment is constructed is not okay, at least for me. But if you don’t care, go for it.

Although the word is correctly used in the last sign, I couldn’t help thinking about another definition of “amenities”: “social courtesies.” Sadly, everything I see in our public life shows me that this sort of “amenities” is absolutely NOT “now open.” If we can’t find our way back to civility, I fear that soon we will also be “out business,” and not just from 11 to 12 each day.

Unmentionables

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This morning, for algorithmic reasons beyond my comprehension, a video of a woman squeezing herself into some sort of elastic tube appeared on my social-media feed. Her message, after the tube had turned into a tourniquet around her waist, was that this garment hurt. Well, duh. Call me old-fashioned, but there are a few things I’d rather not see. Or know, such as what this sign means:

I know it costs $4. I know that the number one and “Pcs” don’t match. I don’t want to know what an “ashtray glass bra” is, much less buy or wear one. In case you’re wondering, this sign was in front of a (strapless) jar.

Nor do I care to discuss this sign:

Is $12 the sale price? Or are the bras even cheaper, now that they’re on sale? Are they made of glass ashtrays? Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.

Moral of this post: The Victorians called underwear “unmentionables” for a reason. A good reason.

Punc. Puzzles

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What governs whether a sign-maker has room for letters and punctuation? Font? The size of the sign? I’m going for chaos theory, based on these signs. The first is from the “Dept of Transportation”:

Somehow “ped” got a period, but “dept” didn’t. Both are abbreviations, “ped” being the shortened form for “pedestrian” and “dept” for “department.” In case you’re wondering (actually, despite the fact that you’re not wondering at all), I should mention that this NYC “dept” isn’t consistent when it comes to punctuation relating to walkers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe the plural “peds” seems different to the dept? Grammatically, it’s not.

Not only “depts,” but also building owners get creative with punctuation:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neither of the two sentences on this sign ends with a period. Also, “owners” should have an apostrophe, before the s or after it, depending upon how many people own the bikes. I gave up the apostrophe battle a long time ago, so I won’t dwell on that issue here. I do wonder (a) how the landlord can figure out who owns a bike and (b) exactly how the “expense” is collected. I’m betting this sign is an empty threat. (Also ineffective, given the number of bicycles that have nearly run me down on New York sidewalks. What’s the dept doing with the time saved by ignoring punctuation rules?) I also wonder about the criteria for capital letters in this sign. If standard rules for caps had been in effect, only “No” and “Removal” would qualify (first word of each sentence), as well as the “Ps” in the title, “Private Property.” If the caps were for emphasis, why is “expense” in lower case?

Another:

I understand that consistency is difficult to achieve in, say, a 200-page document. But if you’re working with only two sentences, you ought to be able to spare a period for each or omit the punctuation mark entirely.

Last but not least:

Okay, no period at the end of this sentence: I’m used to that. But I can’t find any reason for a comma before the conjunction “or.”  For that matter, I can’t find a reason for the text as written. Why not just say “DO NOT FEED BIRDS”? Theories welcome. Punc also.

Quick Questions

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I’m not going to ask whether it’s “hot enough for you,” the standard query in NYC during August. In deference to the fact that everyone’s brains are fried, I’ll just post a few signs and ask a simple question about each. Feel free to answer.

On a sidewalk near Second Avenue:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Question: Do they think pedestrians will hurdle over the orange-and-white bars without this reminder?

In a shop on the West Side:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Does the flu vaccine advertised in the small circle to the left of the larger sign complement the lipstick or the powder?

From The New York Times:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is “wildly unparalleled” a zig-zag or a right angle?

Finally, from a mini-golf course in Seattle:

Does this mean you should ignore the hand rails that are NOT provided?

Prize for the best answers is, well, nothing. But try anyway!