Friday, 10 April 2009

The Pedants

We have a lot of events on at the shop, author signings and the like, and we print out flyers for them and have them around the store. Recently I was at the main info desk and a guy, maybe mid twenties, came over and gave me a piece of paper, saying, 'can I just give you that?' I said, 'sure', as I thought it was maybe a flyer for an event he was promoting. I had a look at it, it was one of ours, and the last part of the sentence read, 'as it celebrates it's 10th anniversary'. This guy had written, in very spidery writing, 'there is no apostrophe in the possessive pronoun'. As I looked it over, he said, 'you are a book shop, you should know better', as he scuttled away from me. My opinion? He should get a life! laugh.gif

I mean, he's right, but come on, is that really such a pressing issue that he feels he needs to draw it to our attention? It's a typo after all... smile.gif

Reminded me of three different women who complained in the card shop I worked in many moons ago. The first made a big issue out of our sign in the window, hastily handwritten, that said 'all stationery now half price'...and the second complained that our halloween sign only had on 'L' in it, the other that it should be spelt hallow'een (Wrong!!). Yes, so we had some incorrectly spelt signage, but really necessary to make such a fuss?? Really??

I know handwriting and grammar is very, very important, but are people who point this out really upholders of the proper usage or are they just anal? I want to kill whenever I go into a fruit and veg shop that has inappropriate use of apostrophes round words, (are they apples or 'apples'??) but I don't say anything to anybody. Should I? Or is life just too short? The latter, if you ask me!
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4 comments:

  1. Allum Barstansangur10 April 2009 at 21:00

    Only 1 exclamation mark or question mark at a time.

    "Inappropriate usage" as opposed to "use".

    All quotations require double-inverted commas and single for speech only.

    F minus.

    See me after class!

    :P

    hehe, nah seriously though, people like that do it because it gives them a mean hard on to think they're educating someone thus making themselves feel momentarily superior.

    The term 'grammar nazi' has become a badge of honour to the pedants of the world and while I don't like 'TXT SPK LYK OMG', I don't give much thought to the growing obsession some have with the mythology of 'prescriptive grammar' which was originally for printers anyway.

    Strunk and White is not a bible you pedantic type people and you are not the high priests of the church of the semicolon.

    Geht' thee' fack' ovaar'urselve's'''!!!!!!!!?!?!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11 April 2009 at 13:28

    haha! i am SOOOO one of those people. i mean, not the type to go up to a business and be all "oh. em. gee. you put an apostrophe in the wrong place."

    but...i have been known on occasion to berate friends (*coughNEILcough*) for horribly misspelled words. my name is stefanie, and i am a Grammar Nazi.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lynnski15 April 2009 at 12:02

    HAH! This is the first time I've EVER seen you use Capital Letters!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Unknown23 May 2009 at 15:45

    In answer to the questions posed by your post:

    1. Yes, grammar, spelling and punctuation do matter - for the reputation of the business and so that customers (especially in a book shop) don't have their shopping experience jarred by poor signage.

    2. No, you should not point it out to the staff - I agree with Allum, above, it's a superiority play.

    ReplyDelete

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