Pedants' safe-house

[oldbutgold]

In view of the strong feeling expressed towards inveterate error-spotters (aka passive-aggressive bullies/pedants/twats etc) what about a thread for all the spelling errors/grammatical mistakes seen stricly outside MN in RL?
Like journalist Keith Waterhouse who was president of the AAA - campaigned throughout his career for the Abolition of the Abhorrent Apostrophe.
Spotted by self recently:

Ladie's hairdressers (in town)
Childrens' Society (on BBC)
10 items or less (everywhere)

Oh, saw a sign outside a conference centre in Birmingham recently, which clearly used to boast that their pupil's had a better GCSE pass rate than any other city. Except someone had painted out the apostrophe. Didn't bother replacing the sign though, so there was still the tell-tale gap!

Nickelbabe, I too have shouted at the 'less emissions' advert, but then I concluded that perhaps it is actually correct, as 'emissions' are not discrete things. I think. In which case I suspect I should say 'emissions is not a discrete thing' and that sounds plain wrong. Gaaaah!

I think split infinitive rule is a hang-over from public schools and then grammar schools. My parents are horrified by them, real fingernails down a blackboard stuff. I find them a tad uncomfortable but try to get over it. By the time ds is old enough to worry about them, I'm sure no-one will care! Even Fowler said the rule was silly, decades ago.

I guess early imprinting is responsible for me then as am survivor of old-style grammar school. Will try to ignore them in future.
Actually, Edam, I wonder whether anyone will care about any of this stuff in the future. Enjoy while it lasts.

"communal garden"

Common OR garden FFS ! Communal garde has an entirely different meaning

Same here, oldbutgold, my grammar-school-educated parents taught me to worry about split infinitives. Then I grew up, became a journalist and read Fowler and others and realised it's all a bit daft. Sometimes even pedants see the light!

oldbutgold, interestingly enough english grammar has changed significantly over the last 500 years - just examine the grammar in Shakespeare; the generations adapt the language to suit them and get rid of sentence structures etc that seem clumsy or particularly.... pedantic.

No doubt in 200 years time our use of language will be seen as ridiculously quaint and outmoded.

Had to smile at the description of a bride's "air loom veil" in my local paper recently.

"communal garden"? FFS indeed.

We used to get tied up
over 'the family are' or 'the family is'

"the family is grieving" doesn't sound right.

Edam normally I would say is but then they say two names and it feels odd.

Americans have different rules to us about some things as my parents have discovered. They teach English as a foreign language and their professor is from the U.S.

It's true that newspaper subs are seriously undervalued.
I've watched teams turn around reams of copy for a tight deadline and then seen it appear sparkling clean. It's amazing what can be picked up by simple proofreading.

Have seen some howlers too...but 'air loom'

Your/you're irritates me

small orange- thats what is used for making something out of thin air!

Anyone know about the infinitive complement?

No Bronze, but I tell you what (else) annoys me - DVD's, CD's BLT's, TV's, OAP's etc. They could just user lower case 's' to denote plural. Even the big companies seem to do this eg Tesco.
Also people who write babys, puppys etc.
I could go on..and on..

I was rather surprised by the notice in the dry cleaning shop: "Dying Service - from £10".

I couldn't help remarking that this was a bargain price for such a risky venture - but I feel my comment was wasted on the desert air.

I got a suggestive 'bare with me' in an email from a supplier.

Living in Cambridge, I do see a far number of signs for Panini's with the apostrophe and the 's' scribbled out.

why does "its" as the possessive have no apostrophe? I've always wondered this.

"It" replaces the subject, so lets say the subject is "Cat"

the cat's got paws
it's got paws

the cat's paws
its paws

why does "its" as the possessive have no apostrophe? I've always wondered this.

"It" replaces the subject, so lets say the subject is "Cat"

the cat's got paws
it's got paws

the cat's paws
its paws

sorry, err bad example

the cat's going on holiday
it's going on holiday

the cat's hat
its hat

why?

I won't point out the other typo then

To be honest apostrophes and the like don't bother me on forums as I think of it as conversation. On signs and adverts is another matter

I used to drive past a pet grooming salon on my way to work called Dog Hair's. I nearly broke my brain trying to think of a way that it could legitimately be correct, but in the end decided that it must have been an errant apostrophe.

And does anyone else find themselves shouting "fewer!!" at the television?

Sakura, two of us have already explained why.