Friday photo: shameful typos

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pizza box

I haven’t had access to the camera all week, so I’m posting this photo of the pizza box from LT’s party. I took a picture of the box because of the misplaced apostrophes in Fish Frys and Tacos.

Misplaced apostrophes are a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I’m constantly circling them in my students’ papers, constantly harping on what an apostrophe means. It does not mean “Look out! Here comes an S!” (thanks to Vixy for that. I love it!)

Thomas has been keeping a site called Shameful Typos, and is thinking about transfering it to any interested party. Should I take him up on it? Anyone out there willing to be a collaborator? 🙂

21 thoughts on “Friday photo: shameful typos”

  3. I tend to go easy on typos and grammatical mistakes, especially if I understand what the person meant. For instance I personally hate having to use unnecessary capitals in typing as my wrists and fingers work too hard already. I do think students need to learn how to express themselves properly for schoolwork, but I guess I don’t see the harm in lots of other venues.

    You know how it goes… you ask someone to do up a pizza box, they get a few things wrong, but the order already went in and now you’ve got 100s of incorrect boxes in a backroom somewhere… and you’re just praying nobody is too harsh about it…what to do?

    I think your energies are well spent helping your students understand that in many situations in their futures (like job applications) attention to this sort of thing can mean the difference between being called in for an interview and having your application tossed in the circular file.

    just my two sense. 🙂

  4. I half-cringe everytime I listen to these Sloan lyrics (from Underwhelmed) because I wonder if that’s how people feel about me and my typo obsession:

    “I usually notice
    All the little things
    One time I was proud of it
    She says it’s annoying”

    and

    “She says I’m caught up
    In triviality”

  5. I tend to think carelessness in expression is indicative of carelessness in greater things, which is why I harp on grammar/usage/spelling more than I probably should.

    (It’s also fun. Yesterday I posted on my LJ an excerpt from a sheriff’s department fax about “drug paraphernalia with a residue of heroine” — yup, with an E. All I could think of was: Who was shooting up? Joan of Arc? Ripley? Buffy? Anne of Green Gables? …)

  6. I proudly announce that I am a grammar and syntax and punctuation and spelling pedant. I don’t understand the cause and effect relationship but I know that writers who write properly usually tell better stories than ones who don’t. I refuse to chat or exchange emails with someone who spells “you” as “u.” Unless of course, she is a tall redhead, in which case all sins are forgiven or perhaps encouraged. It is good to know there are a few other like thinking folks out there.

  7. Yes all…. good thoughts. But I look at context. IM, or peer-reviewed submission? Personal blog entry, or entry on scholarly group blog? email from a pal, Email to a Professor? Pizza box? Billboard for gubernatorial candidate?

    We all make mistakes and we all turn red when we realize we’ve put them out on our blogs etc. I like to feel I am part of a community of folks who are tolerant.

    And Lady T, as always brings it with the toonz. Rawk. Now, what say ye on my jennim-isms? Not real words, yet lots of us do this kind of thing… this is what I love about language. Like everything, it evolves and changes.

    But hey we all have our peeve’s… make’s life interesting.

  8. Hee…I love it when I post something that I think is just silly and throwaway and *everyone* comments. 🙂

    jennimi–I think that (because I\\\\\\\’ve seen so much of it) there are a LOT of people out there who genuinely don\\\\\\\’t know how to properly use apostrophes. In the case of my classes, I think it\\\\\\\’s important that students recognize when certain things are appropriate and when they\\\\\\\’re not…otherwise, that IM-speak sneaks in when you don\\\\\\\’t mean it to. I try to teach them how to be good proofreaders and editors of their own work.

    This may speak to my own personal grammar snobbery, but when I was doing online dating, I ruled out a lot of people for using IM-speak in their ads or emails. I tended to write them off as either young or stupid…ditto for bad punctuation. lack of caps doesn\’t bug me so much, in personal emails or blog posts or the like.

    ACK! I have no clue where those backslashes are coming from. I\\\’ve tried to edit them out three times. I give up.

  9. \”lack of caps doesn’t bug me so much, in personal emails or blog posts or the like.\”

    Did you feel this way before you met and started dating the master of this? 🙂

  12. Jennimi-I do enjoy it when people write words in a different way. For example, someone used to crack me up with words like “munny.” It doesn’t save any keystrokes, but it’s fun! 🙂

  15. I very briefly had a blog called “Superfluous Apostrophe” and I could have kept it well-filled if I’d had the time 😉

  16. I have to side with Jennimi here. I tend to be a lot more tolerant when it comes to personal blogs, and I know I’m as guilty as others when it comes to sometimes missing typos (but do appreciate when friends point them out so I can correct them). My focus is on the content. I’d much rather read a blog with great content and occasional typos than a dull blog with zero typos. If I do see an obvious typo on a friend’s blog that I think they’d want to fix, my inclination is to send them a private e-mail rather than highlight the error in a public forum.

  17. Perhaps I am getting this wrong, but it seems that some of you suggest that good writing and proper writing are anthithetical. You can write a good blog, story, anecdote, whatever, and still do it well. One would think that a writer would take pride in their craftmanship as well as their creativity. Having a vision but painting it badly will not get your art on the wall. Why should having a vision but writing it badly be so readily excused? Established writers have editors to iron out the wrinkles of the manuscript. Bloggers and such do not, so self editing becomes a critical skill.

  18. the point of good typing is to convey the intended meaning. a typo can obscure the meaning, change the meaning, or require the reader to pause and figure out the meaning.

    I guess I could write that same paragraph again, substituting “writing” for “typing”, and make a related point, but this is about typos, not about nontraditional capitalization, EZ spelling, or jargon-speak.

    granted, not all the typos I’ve posted on ShamefulTypos.com are typos that “obscure… change…” the intended meaning, but many, if not most of them, are typos that present the store, restaurant, NEWS WEB SITE, etc., in a way that is not as good as they could have presented themselves, and there are varying degrees of importance depending on the context of typo.

    I don’t think that, in general, typos in blogs are a problem–at least the typos that do not interfere with the meaning the writer intended to put into words. but I think there are other problems with letting typos–in general–through the editing process. one aspect of good writing is that it does not contain any unplanned obstacles for readers. perhaps some typos can create the impression not of bad typing, but of bad writing.

  19. “Typo’s” you say? Hehe, maybe not…

    In America, this is technically wrong… but – it is typically European to put the apostrophe -before- the ‘s’ in a plural word.

    My husband is from Holland, and I always tried to correct him when he wrote plurals with apostrophes. His family sends letters written this way too… it drives me crazy and throws me off when I’m reading. He just laughs and says that the Americans are the ones who write things the wrong way!

    Next time you are in a place that sells international “good’s”, say Premier for example – take a peep for yourself. 🙂

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