TYPOS
I just saw a great kids' book. Notice I put the apostrophe at the end of "kids," making it plural and possessive. That means the book is for kids, not a kid. Anyway, the book is called "The Greedy Apostrophe."

It's (it is) about a kind of job site for punctuation marks. The apostrophe gets a bit greedy and jumps onto all the signs, making them possessive instead of plural; SHOE'S, etc. I thought this was a fantastic book for children as well as adults. In my lifetime, the use of apostrophes has gotten noticeably worse, to the point that I am embarrassed. I often erase erroneous apostrophes with my finger if they're on a chalkboard or dry-erase board. I often tell store workers that their signs are wrong.

To be honest, I usually just roll my eyes at the hand-written signs, the garage sale signs and the like. But the "professional" mistakes get my goat big time. It's gotten way too easy to print signs and make professional-looking inkjet printouts. In the old days, it took lots of planning and craft to create a sign, so it was checked over several times by a professional who knew how to spell. When I see a car store sign that proclaims in huge letters: AUTO'S, I just want to scream. I mean, it's POSSIBLE the owner's name is Auto, making "Auto's" accurate, but I doubt it.

Thanks to our rapidly declining public school system and a society that equates caring with weakness, we are inundated with so much bad grammar that we get used to it. On more than one occasion I have found myself adding apostrophes where they needn't be. Now, OK, I can see goofing on "its" and "it's." But again, people who make signs for a living should know the difference! (IT'S always means IT IS. Everything else is ITS)

Sometimes it's sheer sloppiness that could've been easily fixed if the author had bothered to read over the text after it was written. Another issue is random capitalization. For example: Buy Two, get one free! Why would you capitalize Two?

I have been saving some examples of all kinds of this stuff, which I think I'll share now.

This is a scan from the local paper:

Did you catch the problem? Read the headline again. If a doctor can't be bothered to be accurate with his ad, I'm not taking any chances with him touching me.

This was taken at a local carnival.

OK, we all see the extra apostrophe, but what REALLY gets me is why the author felt it was OK to put an apostrophe after Oreo but not after zeppole. Continuity, people! If there were two mistakes, I would think the author believed the apostrophe was correct. To have one only means that he/she simply didn't care.

At a TGI Friday's:

Ok, the joke is that instead of happy hours, this place has ECSTATIC hours! Only they ruined it by misspelling ecstatic in big bold letters that probably cost hundreds of dollars to make.

Here's an ad from Labelle's, a camera store:

Not only did they perform the abominable "apostrophe/no apostrophe" blunder, but they misspelled PURCHASE, possibly the most important word to a retail outlet. Kind of like a head of state mispronouncing NUCLEAR...anyway...

Now, this next one is from the website of a horror movie, called "Captivity."

Grizzly images? Really? You sure you don't mean GRISLY? Or is this film rated R because of brown bears?

And now, the créme de la crème, a pizza restaurant in Baldwin, NY:

The cover of the menu:

Under new what? Do you mean MANAGEMENT? Not very encouraging. And minimum Order? Why is order capitalized?


The inside (my highlights):

Full Topping. Dude, pick a design, capitals or no capitals.

Christino Pie: More random capitalization. Do you want fresh mozzarella or Fresh mozzarella? Too bad they don't have FRESH mozzarella.

Jamaican Beef Patti. I dated her in High School. I wish! Maybe they mean patty?

I won't even go into the category of "charcoal."

second page:

At least they're consistent, but no apostrophes in "heroes."

The correct spellings are Powerade and Nestea Iced Tea. Powerade is a drink. A Power Aide is a superhero's assistant. And folks, it's ICED TEA, not ICE TEA. Tea that is iced, unlike ICE CREAM which is not ICED CREAM for whatever reason.

I was doing a search online for other apostrophe problems, but I ended up finding TONS of them, which is encouraging. I decided not to post all of them, but this one I felt was worthy of mentioning. It's from www.HenryTheThirst.com:

He writes:
i confess that i haven’t really mastered the apostrophe, that i was knocking on thirty before i realised that there is no apostrophe in ‘its’ unless you are abbreviating ‘it is’. i would rather write about clothes for children than childrens’ clothes or children’s clothes. but i DO know that when it comes to apostrophes they certainly shouldn’t be doing this…

but look at what’s happening; there’s a weird sort of maverick, punk-rocking logic behind it all. why is there no apostrophe at all in ‘ploughmans’?
well, that would mean two ploughmen, which would be silly, so no apostrophe there. i like making up words and i do it all the time but the chalkster here is like a wild west outlaw when it comes to punctuation. ride into town, rob the bank, shoot the sherriff, make your horse go WHHIHHIHIHHNN on its back legs and then gallop off while everyone is still picking their jaw off the ground.
“wha?”
“it’s THE TOAST’IES KID! yee hah!”

So keep your eye's open and if you find any mistakes, send them to me! (I did that last one on purpose!)