Presented With One Small Comment

Photo by AD

In their defense, the beverage does complete the meal.

(Thanks, AD!)

FRIDAY, December 19, 2012

It's Friday, and possibly your last office day of 2012 (as it is mine). Are you as excited about it as I am? Are you having as much of a hard time as I am staying focused? I have already made my list of things to do over the very short break, but I admit I'm mostly looking forward to not waking to an alarm every morning. I really hate that jerky little thing.

As 2013 looms ahead, I've been thinking about the future, and I'm very sad to report that I will, for the most part, be wrapping things up here at the spelling blog. I've had a FANTASTIC time sharing these crazy errors with y'all, but unfortunately, I haven't been able to dedicate to it the time it deserves what with the whole day job, and I hate having these posts up if I haven't given them all I've got. You guys deserve better! I want to thank all of you for checking in, sending submissions, and hanging in there during the past year! You guys are the best!

As submissions come in, I'll throw them up from time to time, in which case the automatic internet genies will automatically post them over at the Facebook, twitter, and tumblr pages. Keep an eye there for future posts.

Today's final Presented Without Comment is coming up, and again, thanks to all of you who've hung in there with me! It's been a blast!

When you see it...

My friend MLW just sent me an email which was kind of tough to link to, so I just made a screengrab, so you can have a little looksy.

That gift card thing seems like a good deal, no? 

At least they're consistent?

(Thanks, MLW!)

Link Roundup

Are you, like me, still working instead of off gallivanting somewhere for the holidays? I'm sorry. Here are some links to check out to help pass the time.

This error in this article is only noticeable if you parlais Francais. If we assume the gender indicated in the title is correct, then the verb in the second line of the first paragraph is incorrect. Which is especially sad seeing as how it's correct in the title. But, more importantly, the first line of the first paragraph says that the wine arrives tonight. Which means that you'd likely want the present tense of the verb, and not the past tense conjugation, so this seems all wrong to me. I think he wants to say the wine "is arriving" tonight, but putting those two words together creates passe compose, or past tense. In French, you just use present, right? It's been a long time since I had to deal with this, so y'all just tell me what's what.
(via LA Weekly, h/t DD)

The Godfather of Soul deserved better, y'all.
(via African American Funeral Programs from the East Central Georgia Regional Library, h/t AW)

A rundown of the year in typos, mistakes and corrections. I'm proud to have shared some of them with you.
(via The Atlantic Wire, h/t JR)

And because that's how I roll, here's my latest post over on Lucky's website. I don't THINK there's anything spelled wrong in there, but maybe?
(via Lucky's website)

Options...

Yet another screengrab that I took without making note of where I found it. I'm a busy person. I have things to do. I have to screengrab and go!

I wonder what side I was checking out...

It's like an afterthought, all the way down there at the end. It seems a little cruel to force the VEGETARIANS to skim all the foods they'd prefer to avoid to get to their offerings, but there you have it. And then, when they get down there, it's not even spelled right. That's kind of an extra dose of mean.

Perhaps they were too busy divvying up their menu's beef, chicken, and pork offerings into their own sections. That's weird, right? Menus, man. Getting more complicated every day.

Soup's on!

Another gem from AB's office building's cafe. Is this how this person SAYS this word?

Photo by AB

Can you see it? It says DUNPLINGS. It is wrong. Also, isn't it very technically chicken AND dumplings? Or is the chicken in the dumplings? And has the word dumplings ceased to have any meaning for everyone else? Dumplings dumplings dumplings. It sounds like something you'd do to a ball. Like "I'm going to dumpling this ball WAY into the endzone." Like it's an add-on to fling.

Dumpling!

(Thanks, AB!)

AWKWARD

Another little gem from DD in a local newspaper. Have a look:

Screengrab by DD

DD informs me that the name of the town is, in fact, "Loveland," and not this wonktastic abomination. Hopefully, they were quick to fix this, so Mr. Nelson was able to screengrab his own moment of fame as it SHOULD appear, and not have to share an incorrectly-spelled image with his friends and family. As a teacher, I'd guess that would be the worst. Or even, as a human. Y'know.

(Thanks again, DD!)

Willkommen!

I took dance classes for a VERY long time. 15 years, to be exact. You'd probably never guess it by looking at me today, but if you watch me walk, you'll see it. I still walk in first position. I started ballet classes when I was 3 years old, but never put any real effort into it until I was about 11, when I realized that I might soon get to wear pointe shoes. That was, of course, the whole point (BAM). I liked ballet, but I was always better at jazz, which was a bit looser and freer, and didn't need me to kick my leg quite so high, which I was never able to do. I am, I think it's safe to say, not built to be a dancer, but I always loved it, and still miss it. I can't really even imagine taking classes now. I might collapse from the strain.

All that being said, it was a fairly classical studio, with classes in ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, and gymnastics. I think the most risque we ever got was the year we did Thriller, but most of the girls in the class barely even had hips yet, so the dancing wasn't all that scintillating. OH! There was also a group that did a dance to "Li'l Bitty Pissant Country Place" from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas one year for the recital, which I found quite shocking at my age, but y'know, looking back, it was probably pretty tame. It just wasn't a very saucy group of people.

So, I was surprised when I received this photo and it said it was a group from a dance center. Is this what the kids do at the dance centers these days? My, my. I'd guess even the kids know how it's supposed to be spelled, though.

Check the date on the posting. Almost 2 years old, and on it lives. Welcome to the Caberet CABARET, y'all! Don't be a stranger.

(Thanks, DD!)

Too early!

Those of you out there who are teachers - at what age do we learn the rule? Around 2nd grade? Say it with me now.

I BEFORE E EXCEPT AFTER C

Have a look:

screengrab by KG

Note: googling has revealed that "Buy Broken Arrow" is an event, and not also a mistake, so ignore that. But recieve most certainly is a mistake, and one spellcheck should have caught. RECEIVE. It makes me very uncomfortable when places misspell things in ads marketed to kids still in school. There's still time for them to internalize something that's wrong. Don't do it, company! Don't teach the kids the wrong stuff. Prom has its own questionable issues. This shouldn't be one of them. 

Be better! Try harder! Ugh. 

(Thanks, KG!)

Weretransfer (like werewolf, but different)

Ok, I clipped this thing a few weeks ago, and I have no idea where I saw it. Clearly, it was on one of those transfer websites, but which one? No clue. Yet another example of not being saved by spellcheck, because this is certainly a word. Just not the RIGHT word.

Features that are useful = upgraded ($$) plan. SIGH.

Recipients is a difficult word! And they got it right! WHERE is not, and it's missing a letter. Maybe it got transferred somewhere! I hope it isn't password protected. We'll never see it again.

Presented Without Comment

Photo by MR

(Thanks, MR!)

Friday, 12/14/12

Well, it's not 12/12/12, but that means that it's also not Friday the 13th, so there's that. Another week closer to my week off from work! Yay! For those of you that celebrate, I hope you've had a lovely Hanukah this week, and for those of you looking forward to Christmas, I hope you've got your shopping done, and you can relax from here on out!

I'm still debating how much time I'll take off around the holiday. Whatever it is, y'all will come back in the new year, right? Thanks for sticking with me this long!

As always, please keep an eye out for submissions. You can get them to me via Facebook, twitter, or email. Also, don't forget the new tumblr page. Not much going on over there yet, but it is set to auto-update, so if that's something you're into, maybe you'll be into...um...that. Yeah. That went nowhere.

It's Friday! My company's holiday party is today! Today, we bowl. Because nothing says the holidays like bowling, right?

Also, have a peek at my latest Lucky posts, from last week, and this week. Yay!

Have a great weekend y'all, and see you Monday!

Presented Without Comment coming up soon!

When you see it...

Back again, my new feature, "I couldn't think of anything clever to say..."

AHEM.

When you see it!

It's really kind of embarrassing for them. Kinda bad planning.

Photo by AD

Sadly, I don't know how to ente, but I'd be happy to wait there.

(Thanks, AD!)

BRUNCH!

Look, I don't mean to brag, but I have TWO brunches with friends planned this month. TWO. That's two opportunities to eat delicious breakfast foods while gossiping and being silly. There are very few things that could top that.

In the planning of one of the brunches, emails were flying back and forth with links to recommended restaurants. Where should we eat our delicious breakfast foods? Should we try a new place? Stick with something we know? It was a very exciting time, reading all those menus. That's when I stumbled upon this:

Quirky

There are two issues here. One, that every features an R where a V should live. But also, this is an instance where every and day should be two separate words. Basically, everyday is an adjective used to describe things that are commonplace. "Those are my everyday dishes." There's a good description here. Every day means each day, which is what's being said here. "The sycamore kitchen is open every day..."

Also, if you're going to capitalize Friday, you could show Monday some love, too. I mean, very few people like Monday, but it's still a day, regardless of your feelings.

BTW, that's the restaurant I'll be dining at Sunday. What should I get? All of it, right?

(Thanks, JR, for sending the link!)

Gross

As some of you may know, I am not an adventurous eater. There are a few reasons for this that I won't really get into here, but suffice it to say, eating with me can be an adventure in repetition. I like the same things over and over again. Also, I'm a cowardly cook. I hate trying a new recipe because I'm convinced I'll screw it up. I don't really have a lengthy history of ruining recipes, but my brain has decided I'm a hazard in the kitchen, so it's tough for me to break out of my rut. When I do, though, you can be sure I'll take to twitter to ask questions about EVERY step of the recipe. I like to have full clarity. It's a quirk.

So, when they cook dishes on the daytime talk shows, I usually kind of ignore it. Chances are, it won't be something I'm interested in. And if I had seen this dish being prepared, I probably would have actually changed the channel. There is no faster way to lose me than to put olives in a dish. Any kind of olives. Even these.

Photo by DM

For the record, I googled geen olives to see if anything came up, and I got the "showing results for green olives" thing from google, after which you can almost hear it snickering at you. I sometimes wonder if google worries about me sometimes, with all the idiotic stuff I google for the blog. But then I figure it's probably just happy to be doing its job, right? A searched google is a happy google. Or something.

(Thanks, DM!)

Bread and cheese!

Sometimes it seems to me as though going gluten free is more of a fad than a necessity. Of course, there are people who need to be gluten free. But some days it seems like people are turning their backs on gluten just because other people are doing it, and that kind of surprises me. I mean, would you give up bacon because other people did it? No, you wouldn't. But gluten? Apparently that's a thing people can live without. Me, I only give up foods I am required by my system to give up. That's how I said goodbye to red meat. So sad. I miss it terribly.

ANYWAY, gluten free. It's a thing now. Unfortunately, dictionaries have apparently not gotten the memo. I mean, that's the only thing that could explain this, right?

Photo by JR

GLUTEN. With an E. Feel free to look that bad boy up on the internet, menu crafter.

But let's talk about something else. Namely, blue cheese. Or bleu cheese, as I think I'd spell it. I understand that blue cheese is perfectly acceptable, since they mean the same thing. But, cheese people, is there a difference? Or is it more of a champagne/sparkling wine difference? Enlighten me, please. Je voudrais comprendre.

Merci!

(Thanks, JR!)

Cconfusion

My friend EA is a professional communicator, so she was especially horrified to see this in her local newspaper.

Screengrab by EA

It's a tragic story, one that deserved a little more time spent on the composition and grammar of the language, to give it the respect it's due.

But really, this should have been caught by spellcheck, because RECOMMENDS is the correct spelling, and two Cs is just wrong. How odd that it wasn't, or that it was ignored. And continues to be, if you take a look.

(Thanks, EA!)

Come fly with me!

Everyone looks at the Skymall catalog when they're on a plane, right? You can't not. And sometimes, they have something in there that you do kind of need for your friend who gardens and/or loves Lord of the Rings. Or who has a pet that loves gadgets. Of course. Everyone has that friend, right? Sometimes you are that friend. Embrace it.

Anyway, it's easier to shop for those things when you get home, and you can break out your credit card. So, you head to the website. And that's when you see this.

Screengrab by AJ

I'm pretty sure that if I checked with some inventors, they'd take a pass. Y'all know this is one of my pet peeves. Not every S gets an apostrophe! I don't understand why that's so hard to remember! Sometimes, an S is just an S. It doesn't deserve special treatment, or get a special hat to wear.

Someone, tell the children. They need to know. For the future.

(Thanks, AJ!)

FRACK

I have been known to have strong opinions on movies from time to time. I work in the industry, though not on movies, but I have an idea of what goes on, so I think I know what's what. I have been embarrassed by my opinioning once or twice, most notably when I may have made a couple of retching noises when a movie ended, only to learn a few minutes later that the director of said film was sitting just across the aisle from me. Lesson learned! I always take my opinions outside after a screening now.

But regardless of your thoughts on film, the entertainment industry, the level of pretension auteurs display, all that what-have-you, I think you and I can agree that there really shouldn't be incorrectly-spelled words in movies. I mean, literally hundreds of people see movies before they are released to the general public. SOMEONE should catch these things. And yet...

My friend GH sent this to me. It's from the "Promised Land" trailer. Have you heard about this movie? You can check out the IMDb page here. Total awards bait, with it being in limited release on Dec. 28. Just makes the cut off. The rest of America will get to see it January. The movie does look interesting, and it has a good batch of people that worked on it, so I'm optimistic. Except for this one thing...

It looks like he's watching a movie in a closet, right?

AFFECT, NOT EFFECT. SIGH. Affect is the verb. Effect is the noun. SERIOUSLY. This is a screengrab from the trailer, which you can see in its entirety here. I like to think that Matt Damon's face has this horrified look on it, as though he just CANNOT BELIEVE what he's seeing here. Like "I don't know much about this fracking thing, but you have GOT to be kidding me with that effect BS. That is just sad and stupid. I wrote this! My name is in the credits at least 3 different times! Please don't embarrass me, graphics people."

I mean, *I* don't know much about this fracking thing, but at least I can tell the difference between a noun and a verb, so I've got that going for me.

(Thanks, GH!)

Obviously

I can't even describe to you how much I'd enjoy a personal shopping experience. Or rather, excuse me, a Personal Shopping Experience. That just sounds awesome to me. In my head, it's a lot like Pretty Woman. I sit down, and am handed champagne while people come at me with clothes they think I should try on, and then they style them for me, and I pick a selection, someone else pays, and I walk out, bags in hand. I mean, that sounds great, right?

If I were to attend some sort of auction, that's what I would bid on. And if were a retailer at an auction, that's what item I would want to present. My company would get lots of press, and maybe some people who weren't familiar with my company would get to know us. I'd want to make sure word got out correctly, so they could look us up later. Which means something like this would really kinda piss me off.

Photo by KG

If I attended this auction, and that was my item up for bid, I would be RAGING right about now. Do NOT spell my company's name wrong. Proofread your work before it gets printed. This is clearly just a typo, but now it's out in the world, and someone's yelling at your boss, which means it's going to trickle down to you eventually.

Don't let this happen to you. Proofread, people! Get someone else to help you, too! Don't just do the work. Do the work PROPERLY. It can make a world of difference. And maybe save your job, if you've got a touchy boss.

(Thanks, KG!)

Presented Without Comment

Photo by MR

(Thanks, MR!)

Friday, Friday, yay!

I don't know about y'all, but I have two more weeks to survive before I get some time off for the holidays, and I could NOT be happier! I might even survive those two weeks! That would be handy.

The holidays are a great time to spot seasonal signs with horrific misspellings on them, so keep your eyes peeled! If you see something, please send it my way. Links over there to the right. Thanks!

I hope you all have a great weekend! Stay tuned for today's awesome Presented Without Comment, and I'll see y'all on Monday.

I take it all back!

I think we can all agree that this whole thing has been a tragic tale, for a number of reasons, but there's no need for that headline to add insult to injury.

Screengrab by JR

The really sad part is the story was posted back on Nov. 20, and no one's ever fixed it. And let's not even get into the issues with the story itself.

(Thanks, JR!)

Busy bee!

Two submissions from JR today! First up, this weird sign thing she spotted on Facebook.

I'm always a little leery of using these signs right from Facebook, or anything, for that matter, if I don't know who took/created it, but sometimes, they're just too good to pass up, right? I mean, what is with that? A comma and an apostrophe are not interchangeable things! Nor did busy deserve a capital B, but I at least get that.

And seriously, I AM busy. I think this is a little disrespectful to those of us who have fairly all-consuming jobs. Rude sign makers who can't even deploy a proper apostrophe. YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE!

Ahem. And just as a reminder, if you send me something random like this, please also let me know the source (website, FB page, friend's camera) so I can try to get permission to run it. Thanks!

(Thanks, JR!)

Out on the town

In my head, this sort of rolls of the tongue, all fancy and foreign:

Photo by CP

But on the page, it just sort of looks stupid. Like someone perhaps has a twitch. Apparently, date night will be short and squat and stretched to widescreen, which should give you more room for your steak dinner, at least.

Wait, is that a steak dinner? Or fish? It's hard to tell given the unnatural dimensions. But look at that fork! That's a fork of Crocodile Dundee proportions!

And now you know I'm old. Yay!

(Thanks, CP!)

It was raining, at least.

This past weekend, I went to a restaurant called "Salsa and Beer," and I didn't have any beer. I was concerned that I broke some sort of rule. But as I explained yesterday, I just really wanted a Coke.

ANYWAY, when we got there, this was in the parking lot, and I made quite a production out of getting a photo. Here's why:

Why a gorilla? With a cap? 

At least the name of the company is correct, right? And for the record, the name of the organization they were sponsoring was also spelled correctly. The only thing they blew was "Sponsored By."

The sad part was the sponsored organization was with a school. You can sort of picture the teacher coming out of the school, taking one look and being all "Um, thanks. That's...great." I mean, how do you turn down a trailer for your group? Or the paint job? I'm not sure you can.

DRINK!

This submission is from the same restaurant as the previous post. Apparently, they have a fairly tenuous relationship with proper grammar and spelling.

Photo by CP

Again, I'm rather impressed by the dedication, at least. I mean, if you're going to go, go BIG. COMMIT. Which this restaurant has done in fine form.

Well done?

(Thanks, CP!)

Spirit of St. Who?

I've gotten so many submissions from wonky menus lately that we almost had a whole week of food-related fails. It's just sad. But I'm glad to see so many of you getting out to new restaurants! Have you had anything good? What about a drink? Do you have a drink with dinner? I sometimes prefer to just have a Coke, because I cut back on Coke a while back, so I treat myself when I'm out. I LOVE Coke. No diet. Bring on the full sugar. I might, from time to time, have a beer. Maybe one of these options?

Photo by CP

Sad, right? Like I said. To get it right once, and screw it up the other two times is, in a way, impressive. I mean, you really have to TRY, don't you? You have to selectively NOT see the correct one.

Now that's focus.

(Thanks, CP!)

He did what?

This is just a fantastic example of when spellcheck can't save you.

Photo by MR

Check out that last sentence. This paper is apparently averse to the phrase "pistol whip," for one, and doesn't proofread their articles with human eyes, for two. Because feeling is, of course, a word, but not the one that was needed here.

Do people not know what pistol whip means? I mean, I watch a lot of Law & Order, so maybe regular people (who have different viewing habits) don't. Do you?

(Thanks, MR!)

Little (older) Women

My friend AW sent this to me over the weekend. It's from, I think, the new Lifetime movie "The March Sisters at Christmas," which is a modern retelling of Little Women, sort of. Basically, they take the March girls and place them in modern times and force them to make repairs to their home to prevent Marmee from selling it. Or something. Here's the description. Because what you're looking for in home repair is for the work to be completed by your totally inexperienced teenagers.

ANYWAY, I sent a note to AW to ask what this is, so I'm not sure. But I'm guessing it's about Beth, since it involves music. And I've nicknamed it her Life Goals Flower. Because what else is it?

Photo by AW

Here's a tip, Beth. Before you apply to Berklee, you might want to look up how to SPELL IT. Sometimes colleges can be a bit persnickety about these things. Perhaps the way your story ends in the original book is better for you in the long run, if this is what you're going to do with a second chance.

(And for the record, even if she meant UC Berkeley, it's still spelled wrong.)

(Thanks, AW!)