Outrage!

[ladyofastolat]

A birthday card was just passed around at work for us all to sign. It included a rogue apostrophe! This was in the proper printed greeting! You kind of expect these thing's in handwritten sign's in greengrocers shop's or special's board's in pub's, and we all make slip's of the pen every now and then, but a proper published greeting's card? Outrage! Outrage! What i's the world coming to? et'c e'tc.

It's not even a funny mistake. Rogue inverted commas can be. ("Fresh" chicken soup). Confusion over similar words can be. ("The meat is complimented by the sauce." "Beware the deadly rouge gorilla fighters" etc.) This was just annoying. I am sorry to say that I had to discreetly cross it out before I could sign the card.

Comments

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

My favourite missing-apostrophe story (apocryphal or not) is the notice "Residents refuse to be put in the bins" ;-)

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Also, never mind rogue inverted commas, odd word-order can have the same amusing effect, such as on my box of "Dead Sea Genuine Bath Salts"! Here, as (probably) with the chicken soup, they really do mean "genuinely from the Dead Sea" rather than it being a cheaty weasling way of making you think that without technically claiming it, and it's a bit mean to poke fun when it's clearly a case of non-native English users creating the packaging, but still!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I had to read that about six times before I worked out what it was meant to say.