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)

I was very proud of DD (6) at the weekend when she picked up her first typo in a reading book. "Mummy, this just doesn't make any sense...".

By oldbutgold Wed 09-Jun-10 12:45:50
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.

oldbutgold, an apostrophe can be used in certain plurals, including plurals of acronyms such as cd's:

www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/pizza?view=uk

Oh, I'll go and read the thread

Actually your link says the abbreviation for CDs is indeed CDs. Dunno why they say IOU's is OK (although they still suggest IOUs). Maybe it's something to do with the I O U not actually being the initials of the words but the sounds - as in, not an acronym?

I've not seen a single style guide that accepts possessive apostrophes for single acronyms and I've read a fair few of them.

I'm not sure I agree with those who say grammar doesn't matter on a forum.
If there are mistakes because people aren't expert typists then that's forgiveable but if they are because posters don't know what's correct then that is a problem as these are the very people who might be writing or checking content which is for public consumption ifyswim.
It is also important that those who read the posts see correctly written English to apply in other situations.

Anyway, my current pet peeve is "PIN number" - I texted the BBC about this last week and in the next news bulleten it had been changed. Maybe noting to do with me but I took pride in the change.

Actually, there's a third typo, Lunatic

PIN number doesn't bother me so much ? it is how people use that particular abbreviation and it is much more precise than 'PIN' in speech. No possibility of confusion with dressmaking.

Sakura, you'd never say hi's or her's
his, hers, its

Who knows what the P.I. of PIN stands for, anyway? Suspect people neither know nor care that the N is for number.

doesn't everyone?
Genuine question

Bizzy - could it be the salon is owned by someone called Dog Hair? In which case the salon would be his or hers, therefore Dog Hair's.

In the recent edition of "Good Homes" magazine there is Next Home advert in the back, it is set out like a mini magazine. There is a page on the summer festival season.
It says...

"We love... Summer festivals. If you're of to enjoy some music outside, get kitted out to party"

Yes, it was, Lunatic.

Ok, ...can you elaborate

He = his ( he's) = The man's
She = her (not her's, in this case) = The woman's

It = its = The cat's

So 'its' is just a completely different word to 'it' (like 'his' is different to 'he') and it's just a coincidence that it sounds exactly like it?

PS, I quite like 'sprinking', though - suggests a sprightly walk, almost bouncing along......

his, not 'he's'

its the fact "its" sounds so much like "it", but 'His and her sound so different to he and she that's confusing me

I think

I mean "it's" the fact, naturally

I'm with oldbutgold. Using apostrophes on the plurals of (capital) acronyms is one of my personal bugbears; and I have the misfortune to work in a large organisation where they are used (and abused) constantly.

I get frustrated with 'uninterested' and 'disinterested'

Is PIN Personal Identification Number? I have possibly made this up in my head.

Apple's for sale.

Grrrr.

Oh yes, OrientCalf, that one drives me bananas!

And also should own up to having an misused apostrophe radar. A hairdresser opened a new shop in our village and I and two friends ended up having a conversation in the pub about how we could make the name be correct (Look's Good). We could only come up with the story that it was owned by Look (whose mother had a problem with spelling) and he was Good. What he was good at became more dodgy as more wine was consumed..............

The apostrophe was eventually removed from the shop signs, but that telltale little gap remains. And they'd had the name stencilled on all 4 windows, so that's quite a few gaps.