Speaking of signs... I used to work at 7-Eleven, and we had a wine cooler in the back of the store. The owner hired a guy to come in and paint "Fine Wines" on the front of the cooler. The guy spent the day painting, and it looked really nice, but he wrote "Fine Wine's."
If the cooler had been owned by a guy named "Fine Wine," or a guy named "Wine" who happened to be fine, that would be one thing, but that wasn't the case. It drove me crazy looking at that every day.
The sad thing is the owner didn't even seem to realize there was anything wrong, and neither did the other employees.
Originally posted by lukejohnstonSpeaking of signs... I used to work at 7-Eleven, and we had a wine cooler in the back of the store. The owner hired a guy to come in and paint "Fine Wines" on the front of the cooler. The guy spent the day painting, and it looked really nice, but he wrote "Fine Wine's."
If the cooler had been owned by a guy named "Fine Wine," or a guy named "Wine" who happened to be fine, that would be one thing, but that wasn't the case. It drove me crazy looking at that every day.
I would have taken a razor blade and scratched off the apostrophe. Seriously, when management posts a memo around here, I take my red pen and mark 'em up.
On a slightly related topic, it really amazes me how unprofessional people can be when composing emails. I get copied on some of the emails our sales team sends out and it makes me shudder. Run on sentences, incomplete sentences, and randomly placed commas and apostrophes occur most frequently, as well as (my personal pet peeve) the multiple punctuation marks at the end of the sentence. Putting three question marks at the end of the line makes you look like a fifth grader in an Xbox chat room.
Rule of Thumb: If you don't know how to use a semicolon, don't. It's avoidable.
I guess the email thing is open to debate. If it's a professional email, then I agree that it should be composed in a professional manner. If it's a casual email between friends and family, or even from one employee to another within the same company, I don't think grammar and punctuation are a must. I prefer it, but I don't blow up at people if they get a little sloppy in that kind of situation.
Yeah, I was referring to professional emails. I'm more forgiving with personal emails, unless they're completely incoherent.
But getting back on topic (sort of), when I used to have a site, I would bust my ass proofreading my posts, but I would always miss at least one typo.
So I told my friends, "Let me know if you find any typos so I can correct them." Two weeks later, my phone rings at 7:00 am. I'm still asleep, so I stumble downstairs to answer it and it's a friend of mine calling to tell me there was a typo on my site.
I said, "It's not a f'uggin' emergencyI You could have sent a fuggin' email!" and hung up on her and now she hates me.
Rule of Thumb: If you don't know how to use a semicolon, don't. It's avoidable.
Ok, so what's your call on this use of the semicolon:
There three different rivers next to Manhattan that are spanned by bridges: the East River, spanned by the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, 59th street, and Triboro bridges; the Harlem River, spanned by the Willis Avenue, Third Avenue, Madison Avenue, 145th Street, Macombs Dam, High, Alexander Hamilton, Washington, University Heights, Broadway, and Henry Hudson bridges; and the Hudson River, spanned by the George Washington Bridge.
I hate this use of the semicolon, and convinced myself it wasn't proper. However, after finally consulting the style book, I had to admit I was wrong. I still hate it though.
Moe
Farooq is the man so hit your knees and start praying!
I get more annoyed these days by "cool spelling" than poor grammar. I hate Z instead of S, most of all. It's bad enough companies (like the WWF) do it for copyright purposes, but that's at least for business reasons. I can't stand people trying to be cool (or Kool or Kuul or whatever) by intentionally showing how stupid they are.
On a tangential note, Internet abbreviations are right up there. IMO, they suck. YMMV.
Read Odessa Steps Magazine. In print or on the net. www.odessasteps.com
I've never worked for a newspaper of any kind, I didnt finish college, and my grammar is TRASH.
(Most of the folks in this thread started their posts with a little background bio involving their writing abilities and I didnt wanna feel left out. Sorry.)
Anywho, I hAtE PeOpLe WhO think it's cool to aLtErNaTe between upper-case and lower-case letters in eMails and IMs.
Ok, so what's your call on this use of the semicolon:
There three different rivers next to Manhattan that are spanned by bridges: the East River, spanned by the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, 59th street, and Triboro bridges; the Harlem River, spanned by the Willis Avenue, Third Avenue, Madison Avenue, 145th Street, Macombs Dam, High, Alexander Hamilton, Washington, University Heights, Broadway, and Henry Hudson bridges; and the Hudson River, spanned by the George Washington Bridge.
I hate this use of the semicolon, and convinced myself it wasn't proper. However, after finally consulting the style book, I had to admit I was wrong. I still hate it though.
Moe
Without using the semi-colon to separate those lists, that sentence would have been a massive clusterfuck. There's really no other way to do it, other than maybe using bullet points, because the lists don't constitute any more than sentence fragments on their own. I don't have any problem with that sentence, other than the fact that there is WAAAY too much information in it. Fortunately, sentences like that don't come along too often anyway.
Originally posted by odessasteps I get more annoyed these days by "cool spelling" than poor grammar. I hate Z instead of S, most of all. It's bad enough companies (like the WWF) do it for copyright purposes, but that's at least for business reasons. I can't stand people trying to be cool (or Kool or Kuul or whatever) by intentionally showing how stupid they are.
On a tangential note, Internet abbreviations are right up there. IMO, they suck. YMMV.
Actually, the word is 'Kewl'.
...
Okay, I'm gonna go away before someone hits me.
"HOROWITZ WINS! HOROWITZ WINS! HOROWITZ WINS!" Jim Ross
Man, you guys are tough. I write the Ask 411 for 411wrestling and prefer to think of my style as casual, conversational. I likely drive you nuts (if you read me)as I tend to use "gots", "anyways", and even, "anywho." I'm not sure if that's the proper use of quotations but I'm sure I'll find out. My background is radio and I write for sound. I want the internal voice that you hear when you read my column to sound conversational and directed to you personally. I try to write as if I were telling the story to one individual. My grammar may not always be great in real life and I often use made up words but that is the way most of us talk. I do agree on spelling though as typos in newspapers drive me crazy. I find that no matter how many times I read the column before posting it always has at least one typo or incorrect word that is spelled right but misplaced (on instead of one or ad instead of as.) I hate that but not as much as Widro hates when I screw up the html links.
Actually bad grammar on a pro-wrestling Website doesn't bother me too much. It's not like most people are getting paid to do this stuff. For most it is just a hobby. What does bug me is seeing blatant errors in professional publications, notably by people who write columns in newspapers. **cough**SanFranciscoExaminer**cough**
Originally posted by MoeGatesRule of Thumb: If you don't know how to use a semicolon, don't. It's avoidable.
Ok, so what's your call on this use of the semicolon:
There three different rivers next to Manhattan that are spanned by bridges: the East River, spanned by the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, 59th street, and Triboro bridges; the Harlem River, spanned by the Willis Avenue, Third Avenue, Madison Avenue, 145th Street, Macombs Dam, High, Alexander Hamilton, Washington, University Heights, Broadway, and Henry Hudson bridges; and the Hudson River, spanned by the George Washington Bridge.
I hate this use of the semicolon, and convinced myself it wasn't proper. However, after finally consulting the style book, I had to admit I was wrong. I still hate it though.
Moe
It looks correct to me, but that is a dreadful sentence. Where did you find it? I need some bedtime reading material guaranteed to knock my ass out.
I'm a licensed New York City Sightseeing Guide. Sentences like that are my livelyhood (although not at the present moment, as I'm living in DC right now). The real scary thing is I can also tell you which of them have bike and foot paths, and could probably even tell you the year half of them were built.
I was trying to think of a sentence with "lists inside lists" for my example and that was the first thing that came to mind.
If you're REALLY interested in this stuff, Click Here.
Moe
Farooq is the man so hit your knees and start praying!
Originally posted by lukejohnstonActually bad grammar on a pro-wrestling Website doesn't bother me too much. It's not like most people are getting paid to do this stuff. For most it is just a hobby. What does bug me is seeing blatant errors in professional publications, notably by people who write columns in newspapers. **cough**SanFranciscoExaminer**cough**
No punctuation. And the "N" in "Open" in an upside down "U."
Jason Baldwin Head Writer, 4-Color Review And the guy behind PAPER CUTS! TRUTHFUL comic book commentary Every Thursday, only at 4-Color Review http://4colorreview.com