This is — much to my stickler elán — the third time I have found blatant, even egregious, spelling atrocities in a public place. Of the three, this one attempts to be far more inconspicuous, but the Eye of Grammatical Truth will always be drawn to such open displays of spelling apathy.
The signage below seems innocuous enough—a layout of the building my son and I were in displaying the floor layout and fire exits. You can probably find these in most any building you walk into. They’re so commonplace that frankly I don’t typically notice them.
I did notice this sign, but it was my son who actually caught the exposed misdeed.
You can kind of see the circled areas on the layout indicating exits and such. Take a nice gander at the ‘information’ at the bottom of this gem:
Nice, huh? Note the improper use of the apostrophe in both cases:
• Fire Exit‘s — apparently these egresses own something; probably your keester if you can’t locate them. Erase that troublesome little punctuation mark and you erase their power over you . . . they become simple “Fire Exits”.
• You‘re Location — A straightforward statement calling you, the reader of this sign, a “location” . . . in case you don’t see the point you’re is a contraction of you are. What you really want here is “Your Location”, or better yet the old standby “You are Here.” Some existentialist might be offended though; best to be socially neutral and remain vague, if not altogether incorrect.
I should have gone to the nurses station and asked for some aspirin . . . and a bottle of White Out.. *sigh*
I also see these same mistakes posted in various places or papers. It makes me wonder what is happening in schools. By the way, I loved your ending to the story…..
I absolutely see red whenever I stumble upon the “you’re” instead of “your” mistake. I forgive it in emails or instant-messages, but I cannot abide seeing this kind of stupid mistake in a public place where there are supposedly editors and proof-readers who are supposed to prevent this sort of thing.
Near my house there’s an ad for a store named “GANT” that’s in the mall. In not-very-small letters, the sign advertises the location of their “Fladship Store.” Clearly, they meant to write “Flagship,” but they were too cheap to employ a proofreader before sending the ad off to be printed. Now, does that sort of thing inspire confidence? No. No, it does not.
куплю права – получить водительские права, купить права на машину