Fruit stands and grammar

They are some of the worst offenders! Thanks to my dad for e-mailing me this bright and early this morning.

Misplaced apostrophes are a girl's worst enemy

Breckenridge. And no.

My former boss sent me this

Everyone loves a good error!

Bonus photo for today: There's no such thing as "first annual." Make a note!

Geez, I wonder what REALLY happens then.

Who says two is better than one...

Close, but no...

Dear random deli on Third Avenue,

Two wrongs hardly ever make a right.



Love,
YSV

Even while I had mono

... I was still stalking bad signs:


Hobby Lobby, Denver

Oh, the inconsistency

Once again, illogical placement of a random apostrophe-s here and there, but not everywhere. Why? WHYYYY?

A note about family names

Now that every married couple I know has a blog, the following seems timely.

When you're writing a surname, the same rules apply as they do to every apostrophe-s word out there. It's the Johnsons, not the Johnson's. If we're talking about the Johnsons' lawnmower, however, it looks like that — plural possessive. (I live in New York City, so I don't see a lot this on homes or mailboxes, but nationwide, I've seen a lot of "Welcome to the Hanson's" action going on.)

Last names that end in -s are understandably tricky and take an -es. The Joneses always seems to mess everybody up. It's either The Jones Family or The Joneses.

However, I admit there may be more than one school of thought on this topic. If yours differs from mine, please fire away!

Katie Holmes, please do not eat your staff

From Gawker Stalker today:


Ye olde apostrophe, it is your friend. Sometimes. When it feels like it.

Offensive things about this post No. 2 and 3: Lack of comma after girl; comma splice. I could go on, natch.

Save money. Don't edit. Wal-Mart.

Not good, Sammy W. Not good.

Wal-Mart in Mason City, Iowa.

"1000s of DVDs for sale" vs. "1000's of DVD's for sale"

I've been thinking about this predicament lately — namely, what do you do when it looks awkward to put an apostrophe and awkward not to? Which awkward is least awkward?

For example:
I've come to not really mind people writing, "CD's and DVD's for sale," and the like (that's how the NYT does it). However, AP Style is to say someone is in their 20s, and temperatures are also sans apostrophe. Maybe just words, not numbers, need the apostrophe for clarity.

Anyone else have different thoughts?

Thanks to Kimberly from Oregon for the photo!

Let's play spot the errors!

Ready ... go!
Fifth Avenue and low 30's, Manhattan. Their slices (or slice's) are muy excellent!

Monday Mistake Madness

Putting up a bunch today to compensate for the lack of posts last week. Sorry, guys — sometimes there just aren't enough errors to go around.

Oh, stop it.

Yahoo! skipped school on its/it's day.

Hard to know what they were going FOUR here.

These come from Alex in our our CT (soon to be Queens) bureau. Thanks, A!

Hey, at least you don't have to pay for 'em

Thanks to R. from our upstate New York offices.

Apparently I am failing to change the world. Huh. How 'bout that.

No matter how hard I try, this one is still painful because it's so rampant!


Canal Street at Broadway, Manhattan.

To all the ladie's in the house!

Duane Reade has some issues. Remember this one?

I can't be sure

But I'm thinking this is probably a big-time mistake.

People, you're making this way too easy

So wait, this company's singular employee own the organization's hydraulics subdivision too? That's nice work if you can get it. And you can get it without knowing how to spell!

46th Street @ Park/Lex, Manhattan.

I can't explain how little sense this makes ...

I don't know where to begin here. Why is VIDEO'S the only word that's "apostrophized" under this apparent logic? And "TV S" and "I POD S"? What is that?

East 35th Street, Manhattan.

But, I want my arm's waxed, too!

The inconsistency here makes no sense ...

Near Macy's Herald Square, Easter Sunday.