Aug 22, 2008

grammar mockery taken to new depths

Laughing at others' syntactic and orthographic ineptness is one thing. Making it your mission to correct others' mistakes: not so wise.
Deck's diary account of the Grand Canyon incident was submitted as evidence in court. It says the two men climbed Desert View Watchtower while on holiday from their typo-enforcement duties "and discovered a hand-rendered sign inside that, I regret to report, had a few errors. I know today was supposed to be my day off from typo-hunting, but if I may be permitted to quote that most revered of android law enforcers, Inspector Gadget, 'Always on duty!' I can't shut it off. . . . Will we never be free from the shackles of apostrophic misunderstanding, even in a place surrounded by natural beauty?"

After correcting a misplaced apostrophe and comma, Deck reported, he was aghast to discover what he described as a made-up word: "emense."

"I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further, so we had to let the other typo stand. Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity."
In their quest to rid the world of typos, Jeff Deck and Ben Herson "used a white-out product and a permanent marker to deface a sign painted more than 60 years ago by artist Mary Colter." A historic landmark. It'll cost 'em over $3,000 to compensate the park service for the fix, and they're banned from entering national parks for a year.

I shudder to think how those morons would react if they stumbled across the only surviving copy of A Table Alphabeticall.

[via Obscure Store]

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