..to be disappointed that there's a grammatical error on the box of an M&S educational toy?

[earthpixie]

"Build the British Isles and all it's famous places"

sigh

Wow, you must be fun to live with

BTW, disappointed no-one spotted my deliberate mistake ......

I agree wonderstuff. IME when you do teach kids some grammar they actually quite enjoy it and feel much better when they know how to use words properly.

Yes, I agree, this is disgusting. I'm a pedant when it comes to these things, and proud of it. (Ex-primary teacher). I know what a huge influence environmental print has on language development, and all manufacturers, media etc have a responsibility here. I'm so pedantic about it that I've emailed Sainsbury's recently to complain about spelling mistakes on baby bibs labelled with the days of the week. (There were two spelling mistakes on them). Ha!
If children see things like this on signs, manufactured goods etc they'll think it's right.
Misplaced apostrophes are one of the greatest problem areas, I think.

There's one in the medical tests leaflet my local health board has given me.

It says 'the NHS have' when it should be 'has' :( There's a clear English sign on it too :9

Damn you Jamie you nefarious grammar-geek-baiter. Can't you leave us poor sad souls alone?

"Sounds like M&S have employed some illiterate twit to put together the text on their products"

Oh God. Sorry to bring this up... but your last sentence should read 'M&S has' not 'M&S have' because M&S is not a 'they' it's an 'it'(ie a company, therefore a single entity'

Spotted it! 14:23 "I got in their first"

Writer

hairy - I get a weird pleasure out of the have/has distinction

(I'd also like "an 'otel" to be re-instated in speech)

I do too Jamie I'm just plain strange though

Writer who got in their what first?

My exP once texted me saying, "your beautiful" and I sent one back correcting him. He still put up with me for about four years after that...

I got an email the other day from a well known charity.

They had all enjoyed an awards ceremony at London Zoo and had been overjoyed to see the new baby guerilla

I just had an image of a wee (human) baby all dressed in camouflage...

Hahahaha

Loving this thread

I have a couple of children's books that have horrible errors in them. They never fail to wind me up. The worst offender doesn't even get the grammar right on the title. It's entitled "Is it bedtime Wibbly Pig?". It should be 'Is it bedtime, Wibbly Pig?".

The best failure to proofread I've seen is on the cover of my discharge notes from UCH, London, following DC1's birth. It kept referring to "straightforward virginal births".....

Hairy Jamie cruelly baited me by hiding a mistake in her posts. I am inordinately pleased that I found it and realise that I am indeed a hopeless grammar geek.

On the plus side my grammar geek status allowed me to correct my DH's PhD thesis (which was utterly appalling due to his complete lack of grammar), which meant he got a great job! So it is actually useful and not just annoying, honest.

The poor man asked me to look over an article he'd written at the weekend. I was naming out so many esoteric mistakes that in the end he very politely withdrew his request for help.

Was your DC born near xmas, cat?

I love commas

< ponders whether "comma" is short for something, and therefore it should be comma's >

Wouldn't matter if it was short for something (it isn't) it still wouldn't have an apostrophe.

Feck, meant snatch a bun

writer.

So here's one.

When shortening something to initals (eg : EG: Chief Executive Officer ) then making it plural, which is right?

CEOs
or CEO's.

I always think the first, but as O is a shortening of Officer, then perhaps ' is right? [sceptical]

Nome, yes, January. Did you get the same notes?

WriterofDreams - I agree that grammar is really important and that anyone remotely intelligent WILL judge you on it. I recently got distinction for a paper I wrote and the tutor's first comment was "only one minor grammatical error in the whole paper" I personally think the content was adequate and not particularly exceptional, so I think this really influenced my final grade!

And I just noticed I missed out a comma AND a full stop in that last post!

I don't think the original error is an isolated incident - I've just had a quick look at the M & S website and found this description straight away.

"Make bathtime fun with this brightly coloured squirters. "

How many more can we find ?

We should all complain and get lots of freebies.