That spider underneath my heel might be the next Plato or Aristotle. But I don't really give a damn.

I've been having a spider problem lately. Which is bad, because I'm not only totally arachnophobic, but I'm allergic to, like, everything. One time when I got bit by a spider on the head (because the evil creature dropped out of a freakin' TREE and landed on my forehead), my forehead swelled up and turned a lovely shade of gray.

So yeah, I like to avoid the little eight-legged evil things whenever I can. And lately they've been sneaking into my house. I am not amused, especially since the landlords swore up and down that the previous tenants never had a spider problem and that I should have nothing to worry about. (I've found 5 spiders, some VERY large, in the past 4 days. In my house. THAT'S A PROBLEM.) Ughhhh.

So of course I figured it would be a good idea to ask the Google Gods what to do about getting rid of the creepy little so-and-sos. And in so doing, I found out that spiders aren't necessarily trying to scare the crap out of me, make me come up with new and innovative ways to kill them (Death by Stiletto and Death by Expensive Perfume are my favorite methods so far), or provide me with a new and unwanted pet. They're wondering. Nope, they're not wandering...they're wondering. Like little philosophers, only of the eight-legged variety. How cute.

I'm not really a sucker for cuteness, though, unless it's dressed in a baseball uniform with the word "Phillies" or "Twins" across the front. So, deep-thinking spiders? I will still squash you if I see you. Wonder away while you've still got the chance!

I BET THEIR COPY EDITORS DIED ON OCEANIC 815 for April 20, 2009

OK, there are more important things to talk about here than a) Doc Jensen's typos and b) the fact that the show's writers made poor Hurley have bad grammar. (On the other hand, Jorge Garcia's blog is totally awesome and is generally free of bad grammar; click here to check it out!)

FARADAY'S DEAD? WTF?

I did NOT expect Faraday to go just yet. I really thought, because of the whole sex suit thing and how ABC/Lost seems to have little tolerance for its actors behaving badly, that Desmond would be outta there.

Now, this didn't totally come out of left field for me. I'd always entertained the possibility that Faraday would go. I just didn't think it would be so soon. Nor did I think it would be his own mother who shot him. I had been wondering for a while if Widmore was Faraday's father; tonight, we found out that that's indeed the case. Which makes the whole thing even sadder--for his entire life, Faraday was merely a pawn in this whole crazy scenario, and he was being manipulated by both his parents the entire freakin' time. That's heartbreaking.

So, Eloise Hawking: good character or bad character? It seems like she thinks offing her son was done for the greater good. But does that make her bad...or good?

I loved the scene with Faraday talking to young Charlotte. Adorable. And then, as Faraday was dying, I had to wonder--is the Island finding a way to kill him off because he tried to change the future by doing what he could to save Charlotte?

Also, for a hot moment there, I thought Richard Alpert was the one who got shot. I'm glad to see that that wasn't the case, but you know what? I'm sick of seeing him EVERYWHERE and not knowing squat about him. Richard flashback, anyone? I think that would be fascinating.

Other notes:

* Loved how Juliet just up and gave Kate that code. That's a hell of a way to get Kate away from Sawyer!

* Speaking of Juliet and Sawyer, I'm really interested to see how they get out of the situation with Radzinsky. That doesn't look good. But it does look exciting...

* Yay for Jack actually Doing Something! I was getting bored with him not doing much of anything.

* I wonder why Miles didn't want to tell his father that yes, he really is his son...

* I'm really surprised that Miles has outlasted Faraday on the show. I like Miles, but I thought Faraday would outlive him simply because Faraday seemed more important to the show.

* Anyone else getting confused by the timetable of all this stuff? So Faraday, who was alive and on the island in 2007, then shows up on the island in 1977, where he proceeds to die. But somewhere between those two times, he manages to graduate college and be given that journal from his mother. Huh? Help, anyone?

What were your thoughts on last night's episode? Were you surprised to see Faraday go? What do you think next week's episode will bring? What other major death(s) do you think might happen in the remaining 2 episodes of this season? Talk to me in the Comments section!

Someone needs to change out the hardware in the brain of whoever created this sign...

JUSTIN, a freshman journalism major at a major university in Florida, noticed that this lovely sign was plastered, like, everywhere (and by "everywhere," I mean on about 700 dorm room doors).

Although the homonym error is the more obvious error, the funnier error is the one you might not spot as easily. See, with the phrase "from letting into...", they never said exactly what this wouldn't affect you letting into your apartment. Did they mean "yourself"? That would be the logical choice, but really, it's anybody's guess...

Thanks, JUSTIN, for spotting these errors!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for April 29, 2009

No, it's not Friday yet. This is not a Foodie Friday entry. It's Wednesday. This is a Hump Day Grammar post. And yet we're still talking about edible things like vegetables and fruits. Bizarre, I know...

So--holy Freudian slip, Batman! Cocumber? COCumber? I saw this and laughed my ass off. Partially due to Pixy Stix-induced delirium, partially because this is a particularly funny misspelling given the context of the sentence it's in.

I also love the general awkwardness of this entire question. It's so clueless in so many ways that it's almost charming.

Happy Hump Day, everyone...whether you spend it with somebody you dig or just spend it in the produce aisle of your grocery store, have a good one. ;)

I'm a PC person, but...

...even I know this is spelled wrong. They're talking about a Macbook. As in, Macintosh. Not Mack as in Mack Trucks. Sigh.

The Department of Redundancy Department takes on writing about pirates. ARRRR!

The Department of Redundancy Department...new and improved, now with time-telling and clock-watching skills too!

YVIE found this one for us. She says: About halfway through reading this article I decided that it was probably plagiarized off a 5th grade current events report. Yeah, that sounds about right, what with the agreement issue and the redundancy issue...

Thanks, YVIE, for spotting this one!

MISSPELLING MONDAY for April 27, 2009

The folks who run the pool that my friend FAITH visited when she stayed at the Howard Johnson in Lancaster, PA, are very much into the whole safety thing...but apparently not so much into the whole spelling thing, as evidenced by their reference to the life "perservor." Sigh.

I also like how they specified that you're not allowed to be "disconnecting/hanging on rope." I'm guessing that they don't want people hanging on the ropes that separate lanes in the pool. And had they said ropes (plural!), that would have been the first thing I thought of when I first saw the sign. But since they said rope (singular!), the first thing I thought of was of someone hanging themselves with a rope over the pool. Gruesome, I know, but it's Monday, and I have to go back to work, so of course I'm thinking gruesome thoughts since I'm kind of not in a cheerful mood, ever, on Monday mornings.

Thanks, FAITH, for catching this funny misspelling!

These errors rub me the wrong way.

This picture comes to us from the fabulous WORDACIOUS. She says: What the heck is a non-friction book? And if the book is "non-friction" doesn't that mean the writer of the book is a non-friction writer? What good is a writer if he doesn't have friction?

Not only am I concerned by the use of friction instead of fiction, but I'm also troubled by the lack of a colon after the word "wanted." As it stands, it kinda looks like this person's looking for a wanted writer's assistant. And here I thought people didn't like hiring felons...

Thanks, WORDACIOUS, for spotting this amusing mistake!

The adjective parade marched through the offices of The Hindustan Times...

To be fair, I highly doubt this was written by a native English speaker. But still...a list of random adjectives all in a row with no punctuation to separate them? WTF?

PETER, who found and sent in this picture, explains the picture much more eloquently. He says: The Hindustan Times of India is not badly edited. But -- just as in the newspapers of English-speaking lands -- the ads are another story. I believe this ad writer was trying to set a record for the longest string of adjectives in a very small space. Or maybe, like Pygmalion and his sculpture, the writer fell in love with the words and couldn't bear to delete any.

I suppose I can understand that sentiment, to some degree. I, too, fall in love with certain words and sometimes say/think them sooooo fast that there's no room to breathe, much less punctuate--for instance, "Omigod BILFs Utley Hamels Werth Dobbs *squeeeeeeeal*!!!!!" That's pretty much what goes through my head during Phillies games. But dammit, if I was gonna write all that down (with the exception of how I just wrote it, since I was writing about how I think that string of words, not how I would actually write it), I'd throw in, you know, a comma. Or several.

Thanks, PETER, for finding this one!

FOODIE FRIDAY (post 2 of 2) for April 24, 2009

Oh, good lord. This again?

You know how they say trouble always comes in threes? Apparently that is totally true when it comes to people having trouble with spelling the word "blueberry." Sigh.

And you know what really kills me? All three misspellings are different. They're not even the same misspelling. And here I thought this was a simple word to spell...

FOODIE FRIDAY (post 1 of 2) for April 24, 2009

It's Friday, finally and thank goodness. And it's morning (yuck--I hate mornings).

But morning also means it's breakfast time--yay! Who wants breakfast? Or, uh, breakfes?

Yep, you read that right. Breakfes.

MATTY, who found this picture, says: This was on the front of a restaurant in Garden City, GA, near downtown Savannah. I was down there for the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. This restaurant also had a sign in the window that read "Come in, we're open" but the place was closed and locked all weekend long.

Hmmm...sounds like this sign and this restaurant both scored pretty highly in the FAIL department!

Thanks, MATTY, for spotting this crazy sign!

Baseball-related word blunders...

I kind of understand this error that got sent out in a Phillies e-mail blast. I send out e-mail blasts for my job, too, and they're a hell of a lot of work to put together (creation of the HTML document in Dreamweaver, different HTML code for the web-based version, and the text version...not to mention client approval, co-worker approval, and manager approval, all in a small amount of turnaround time). So I can understand why the word "get" is in that sentence twice--typically you look these blast components over a million times, and then change them a million more times once you start the approval process, so you might conceivably be too zonked to notice that one of those gets has gotta go. If the process the Phillies go through to make an e-mail blast is anywhere near the amount of pain in the ass-ness it is for me to prepare one lousy e-mail blast, then I sympathize.

But I'll still make fun of the mistake...'cause that's just what I do here on Red Pen, Inc. ;)

And just so you guys don't think I only ever pick on grammar mistakes that have something to do with my beloved Phillies, here's proof that I do pay attention to grammar mistakes involving other baseball teams. TIM found this funny little typo on ESPN's website and then mocked it on his own website, THE SPORTS HERNIA. (Thanks, TIM, for sending this error my way, too!)



Speaking of baseball, I am so not amused by last night's baseball games. My Phillies lost to the Brewers, and the Red Sox beat up on my Twins twice. Bearing in mind that I have quite a few Phillies and Twins on all three of my fantasy baseball teams, I'm almost scared to check in and see how my BILFs fared last night...

Funny stuff from a very klutzy Grammarphile...

I'm having a lazy moment, you guys. See, I dropped something on my toe, and then my toe bled like mad and the pain made me all dizzy and nauseous. Not only did it screw up the polish on my toe, but it also looks like I'll have a very fashionable blood blister type of thing under the nail. Awesome. (For those of you who weren't already aware of this--I'm a klutz.)

So since there's no real reason to post a Lost post this morning (last night's recap was really just meh), and since I'm all lethargic and I feel kinda weird, I'm thinking now's a good moment to post a few funny items submitted by several fabulous readers of Red Pen, Inc. That way you guys will be entertained, and I don't really have to write a real post until this afternoon, when I'm (hopefully) a little more perked up than I am right now.

First up, an amusing spelling FAIL submitted by the lovely LadyStyx:


...and a particularly hilarious comic sent in by b13, whose photography is wonderful (you've gotta check out his uber-cool photography blog)...

(This is particularly hilarious because on the day that this comic was e-mailed to me, I'd been covertly making fun of someone in my office for repeatedly using "less" instead of "fewer"...so this really gave me a case of the giggles!)

JENNA also sent in a funny FAIL that she found on FAILblog...


And now I leave you with a funny little anecdote from WINONA. She says:

“I want my wife to stimulate me, not the government.”

This was the bumper sticker on a car that I followed for a few miles this morning on my commute. At first glance I chuckled – and noted how strange it was that such a classy bumper sticker was on a fancy Infiniti – but then, as I often do, I started overanalyzing what I’d just read.

It sounds to me that his wife is a *very* busy (and, depending on your values, quite immoral) person – and I’m also wondering if this not only covers the federal government, but also the state and local levels. I really hope she gets overtime for all her troubles.

My counter-proposal: “I want my stimulation to come from my wife, not the government.”

Anyone want to go to Café Press?


Thanks to WINONA, JENNA, b13, and LadyStyx for their contributions to this post!

Some amusing TV show-related errors...

Mark this day down on your calendars--I'm talking about TV show-related errors that have nothing to do with Lost! (The Lost post is tomorrow, of course.)

This first one is The Office-related and comes to us from MAGGIE. There's an itsy-bitsy apostrophe error here, but that's definitely not the funniest part of this picture. Can anyone tell me what the hell "compotent" is? I'm guessing they mean "competent," but every time I look at "compotent" it reminds me of how the word "impotent" looks, which makes me giggle because I have a totally sophomoric sense of humor.


And here's an inexcusable error relating to Desperate Housewives. Between the start and the end of this brief paragraph, this People writer evidently forgot the last name of the actor he was talking about. The actor's name is Gale Harold. Who's this "Howard" dude?



Speaking of TV, it's only mere hours until I get my Sawyer fix. *swoon* Yes, I have a one-track mind; I can't stay focused on other TV shows for very long!

Thanks, MAGGIE, for finding this great Office error for us!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for April 22, 2009

I saw this headline and was like, "There's gotta be a catch to this. They couldn't really have made this egregious of an error in a headline on people.com...right?"

Wrong.

Then I got to wondering about what a stripper poll would be like. If a bunch of strippers decided to create a poll, what do you think it would be about? Best brand of stilettos to dance in? Biggest amount of money they've made in an evening? Longest lap dance they've ever given? What sorts of questions would they ask? (And better yet, what would the answers to those questions be?)

Also on the Hump Day theme, apparently "virginity" is a difficult word for some talk show hosts to spell...

Happy Hump Day, you crazy kids! :)

My hero is...

...someone who doesn't speak caveman-speak. How about an "an" or a "your" somewhere in there, folks?

Then again, I guess clubbing beasts to death and then bringing them home to Mrs. Caveman to cook over the cave-fire for dinner is a job that doesn't keep a person tethered to his desk, so maybe whoever wrote this is on his way to discovering his perfect job. If I were to click on that article, I wonder if that would be one of the jobs listed there...

Sigh. Copyeditors Needed Now, you never fail to give me good blog fodder...

Double whammy...

Usually I like most things that have to do with Elvis, but even the picture of Elvis at the top of the sign can't make me feel better about the rest of the sign. JOHN spotted this for me when he was hanging out in Nashville, and this sign contains not one, but TWO crazy little errors.

First, you'll notice that the spelling of the word souvenirs is completely and utterly butchered. You'll also notice another mistake, which is more subtle. That isn't a hyphen in the word T-SHIRTS. That's a dot. (I enlarged the picture and double-checked. Definitely a dot.) And it's a very strangely placed dot, at that.

Thanks, JOHN, for snapping a photo of this crazy sign!

A couple of queen-sized errors...

I wonder if Cleopatra left some sort of provisions for a curse to affect any people who disgraced her name with crappy grammar in the (many, many, many) years after her death. If that's the case, then Cleopatra's got some work ahead of her...I've found a few people who might deserve a curse or two!

This one comes to us from ChicagoLady, who says: Wow! I've heard of archaeologists doing excavation, but I never knew tombs could do it, too. Makes me wonder why so many discovered tombs didn't just excavate themselves and save everyone time and money!

And here's another Cleopatra-related error that I found. I guess the person who wrote this article either made a silly typo or doesn't understand that descent (noun) and decent (adjective) are two different things...

Thanks, ChicagoLady, for finding the funnier of the two errors that I used in this post! :)

MISSPELLING MONDAY for April 20, 2009

I'd heard about this awful misspelling and was searching for pictures of it when Red Pen, Inc. reader LEANNE read my mind and sent me two pictures of this crazy mistake. The Washington Nationals had a spelling snafu on their hands--or more accurately, on their players' chests!--on Friday. Apparently the word "National" is really difficult to spell correctly. Who knew?


I'd also like to point out that in addition to the jerseys being adorned with this awful misspelling, Yahoo didn't exactly come across as extremely intelligent with their photo captions... "A jersey spelled 'Natinals'" is not exactly the most accurate description. The jersey is spelled j-e-r-s-e-y. The name on the jersey is what's misspelled. Ugh.

I've gotta wonder what went down on Friday when these players were getting dressed for the game. Do you think the players noticed the misspelling and either didn't care or were told to wear them anyway, or do you think they didn't notice at all until it was waaaaaay too late?

Thanks, LEANNE, for finding photographic evidence of this hilarious error!

A major league misspelling...

As a loyal Phillies fan, I'll look for any excuse to make fun of anything Mets-related. Misspellings are always a good excuse.

What the hell is a "frachise"? It's probably one of those fictional things, like the playoff games associated with the playoff tickets they'll send you before the season is over because they're assuming (hahaha!) that their team will make it into the playoffs and they want to be prepared (ie, they don't want to have a stadium that looked like the Rays' stadium during the 2008 playoffs/World Series). I say this is a fictional thing because the Mets didn't have any playoff games last year. Or the year before that. And hopefully, the third time's the charm this year... ;)

FOODIE FRIDAY for April 17, 2009

As you're reading this, it's probably Friday morning. As I'm writing this, it's Thursday night. Some of you who know me personally know that I'm taking a few days away from everything to be a reclusive, eccentric writer--to work on my novel and short stories and to get my head back in the game, so to speak. I'm not allowing myself any distractions over the next several days (no internet, no baseball games, no phone, etc) so that I can focus on some of these projects and make more progress on them. (It's often really hard for me to write my non-blog-related stuff because I'm kind of another person when I do it; my pen name has a distinct personality of its own, and it's not the kind of personality that's necessarily good to drag out in the middle of the work week, since she drinks a lot of wine and is mildly terrifying. But I digress.)

But just because I'm not gonna be on the internet until Sunday or so doesn't mean that you guys don't get any new blog material outta me (yikes, there were, like, a million negatives in that sentence!). Gotta love how Blogger allows you to set things to post in the future. :) So here's a Foodie Friday post for you guys to read while I am surely locked in my house, listening to Muse, furiously working on four different writing projects...

I'm not a native New Yorker; I'm a transplanted New Yorker. I never saw any of these mysterious "knish" things in the Philly area, where I'm originally from, but I see them all the time here in New York. I'm starting to get used to seeing these things around, although I'm still no closer to really understanding what they are or daring to try one. However, I am very curious about this crazy thing they call a "sweet potatoe." (Way to go, local deli. You put a "toe" in that sweet potato. Ew.)



Also: I've never had any real enthusiasm for visiting a desert, but I'd happily give this one a try. Any desert made of bacon is just fiiiiiine with me. (Unless they meant "dessert," that is...and I kinda suspect they did. Dammit.)


Happy Friday, you guys! You'll still see some Red Pen, Inc. posts pop up throughout the weekend, and then on Sunday I'll be back in the flesh (as opposed to pre-posted) to moderate comments and such... Have a fabulous weekend!

Customers vs. costumers...

This post is dedicated to everyone who needs a good chuckle to cheer 'em up after they finished their taxes (or SHOULD have finished their taxes!) yesterday. :)

The lovely ChicagoLady found this amusing and timely error. This is not the first time we've talked about the customer/costumer mistake here on Red Pen, Inc. I'm not sure why this error is so prevalent (I'm guessing part of it is because spell-check won't help you in this situation), but hey--at least this time around, we get a funny picture to look at. It's a fashion FAIL and a spelling FAIL all rolled into one!

Thanks, ChicagoLady, for spotting this mistake!

I BET THEIR COPY EDITORS DIED ON OCEANIC 815 for April 16, 2009

I BET THEIR COPY EDITORS DIED ON OCEANIC 815 is the newest weekly feature on Red Pen, Inc. It's a combination of recapping last night's episode of Lost and mocking some Lost-related bad writing. We can only assume that the publications whose writing is featured here must have had copy editors aboard Oceanic 815, and once the plane crashed and the copy editors died, the cheap-ass publications didn't hire anyone else to replace them...which results in the crappy writing/grammar/spelling found in this feature.


These errors came from a Lost blog posting that's obviously older, but I thought a few of the mistakes shown here were quirky enough to feature...especially that atrocious "good'ole." Ugh! (I've seen good ol' and good ole before, both of which seem fine to use...but why on earth would anyone write good'ole?)

Anyway. I thought last night's episode was AWESOME. I've always been curious about Miles, and I'm glad we got to find out more about him. Some notable moments:

* I dug the white rabbit statue that little Miles picked up to find the key that he used to bust into the apartment of the dead man who was "talking" to him. Reminded me of the numbered Dharma rabbits...and, of course, also made me think of Alice in Wonderland--and there was Miles, falling down the rabbit-hole, into this weird world where he can "hear" dead people.

* Adolescent Miles was a freakin' PUNK! Loved that!

* The Hurley/Miles scenes were fantastic. Hurley and his Star Wars stuff--hilarious! And the tension/dialogue between them...excellent stuff.

* How exactly did Miles know that Pierre Chang was his dad? I didn't catch that... I don't think any of us viewers were surprised that Chang was his father, but how the hell did HE know?

* Regarding the corpse--how and why did that dude's metal filling shoot through his head and out his skull? Some sort of weird side effect to of dealing with the island's electromagnetism?

* The scene with Kate and Roger on the swing set totally reminded me of the scene with Kate and her father...before she blew the bastard up. Roger really seemed to channel Kate's dad there--a drunk who looked like he was about to get mean.

* Man, Jack's not really doing a whole lot these days, is he? And Juliet seems to be doing nothing, too--that's sad, because I do like her character a lot (even though I don't want her to be with Sawyer, dammit...that's Kate's match!).

* We got to see Naomi again. I found some of what she had to say very interesting, particularly when she told Miles that the island had several dead residents on it. Hmmm... It almost seemed like the man she said Widmore wanted to find--which we know to be Ben--was also dead, didn't it? Does that mean that whatever Richard/Smokey do to Ben makes him die...and then come back to life? Is Ben also someone who's dead? Think about it--has he ever seemed particularly nervous about dying? Is that maybe because he knows he can't die (or at least not yet)?

* Who were the guys who dragged Miles into their van? Who hired them? Ben, perhaps (but how is that possible)?

* Ooh, Sawyer got all bad-ass on that really annoying Dharma guy. Sweet. This is gonna be fun to watch. I knew that guy was going to be a pain in the ass.

* I liked the scene where Miles went back to visit the dead boy's father and admitted that he lied to the man. You could tell the stuff Miles said to that man was the stuff he'd wished he could say to his own father.

* Also loved the scene where Miles was watching Chang and Baby Miles through the window. That was really, really touching.

* It also proved that the same person can exist in the same place but in two different bodies and two different ages. The closest we'd come to that sort of thing before was Big Ben on the one island and Little Ben on the main island. But here we saw both Miles just several feet apart...

* Faraday's back! So tell me this--is this 1977 Faraday, coming to the island in 1977 to do his science geek work? Or is this 2007 Faraday somehow getting himself back to 1977? He didn't LOOK like he was any younger, so I'm doubting that this was 1977 Faraday. But if this is 2007 Faraday, how the hell did he get himself on a Dharma sub to the island in 1977?

What'd you think of last night's episode? What do you think is going on with Faraday? And what's going on with Ben? Talk to me in the Comments section! :)

You're kidding me, right?

I was thrilled to see that one of my Facebook friends got an excellent score on the "Are You a Grammar and Spelling Freak?" quiz. But when I took a closer look at this little blurb, I wanted to cry. Evidently the person who wrote this blurb is not a grammar freak. Specifically, that person seems pretty damn clueless when it comes to agreement and capitalization.

Grammar FAIL. Irony WIN!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for April 15, 2009

I don't know if this technically counts as bad grammar, but it's bad something. Bad anatomy knowledge, that's for damn sure. This is definitely a bad description of whatever this dude's problem is...and his problem, at the very least, is having bad writing skills.

I'd be willing to bet this guy doesn't have two penises. Two sides of one penis? Yes. Two testicles? Yes, probably (unless that Yahoo post was written by John Kruk). But two penises? Doubtful. Very, very doubtful.

Sometimes when people are careless with their writing, they fail to write exactly what they mean. Which means they end up writing something (like the above) that's hilariously unlike what they really mean. This post is a good example of why you should always read over anything you write before hitting that "send" or "submit" button. Unless, of course, you want people to think you're doubly endowed, or something equally crazy...

Happy Hump Day, everyone! Rock out with your cocks out...however many of 'em you've got! ;)

Remembering a beloved sports broadcaster...

I've temporarily had the wind taken out of my sails, kiddos. For two reasons:

1. I burned my hand yesterday when I was making tea. I managed to pour the tea into the cup without incident, but putting the lid on the cup posed a problem. Of course, since I'm right-handed, the burn is conveniently located--where else?--on my right hand. Sigh. So it kinda hurts to do stuff...like write or type. Aloe lotion is my best buddy today.

2. Longtime Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas died yesterday. It's hitting me hard, 'cause he was one of those guys you just think will always be around. Whenever my parents and I would be driving home from a Sunday afternoon Phillies game (we typically left in the eighth inning or so, in order to beat the traffic), we'd be dependent on good ol' Harry to keep us in the loop as to what was happening with the game. We liked hearing that a Phillies closer "struck 'im OUTTT!!!" to win a game (that always made the car ride home so much more fun!). For Phillies fans, we're so used to hearing his voice because it's always been there (at least for people my age, and for a lot of people my parents' ages, too) and sounded as if it would always be there. He was that voice on the radio, that guy who made "swing and a miss!!!!" and "...that ball is OUTTA HERE!!!" familiar to Phillies fans. We expect to hear these things when we tune into Phillies broadcasts. We like hearing these things. And now we'll be hearing these sorts of things from someone else. It's gonna be really weird... I'm at least happy that he got to see the Phillies win another Series before he went, you know? I guess now he and Richie Ashburn are up there in baseball heaven, doing play-by-play together...

For more of my thoughts (more organized than the thoughts in this blog entry, to be sure) on the passing of Harry Kalas, check out the latest post on my baseball-related blog, The BILF Report.

Today's random baseball-related Red Pen, Inc. entry (oops, we barely touched on grammar in this post--there's an apostrophe error, but that's the least important thing going on here, y'know?) is dedicated to Harry Kalas and all the Phillies fans who enjoyed listening to his broadcasts. (This is the sort of thing that makes me more homesick for Philly than usual. Most people in NY, where I presently live, don't have any knowledge of the impact this broadcaster made on the Phillies organization.)

I'm in a rather introspective (and kinda burnt) mood for the time being, but I'll be back tomorrow with more grammar goodness and (hopefully) a hand that is less injured than it is right now.

MISSPELLING MONDAY for April 13, 2009 (post 2 of 2)

MAGGIE, our lovely GODDESS OF GOSSIP, found us this funny picture. Somehow I doubt that this interviewee was referring to the British informal term for mother or talking about the backing holding the movable parts of an astrolabe.

Nice typo...and on that note, I think we've found ourselves another publication that needs to hire a proofreader!

Thanks, MAGGIE, for finding this one!

MISSPELLING MONDAY for April 13, 2009 (post 1 of 2)

I get really excited when Express, one of my favorite stores, sends me e-mails telling me that they're having a sale. Sale = YAY! (Grammarphile = borderline shopaholic!)

But then when I visit their website to see exactly what they have on sale, I get very, very sad when I see misspellings. They misspelled "sleeveless"...and then spelled it correctly right below the misspelling. Spelling FAIL...and consistency FAIL!

This sort of disappointment actually makes me sad enough to not want to shop for a couple days. Oh, if only more of my favorite stores had spelling errors in their e-mail blasts (c'mon, Sephora, you guys know you want to make a few errors that will dissuade me from buying more Philosophy stuff that I don't really need, right?)...then I wouldn't be buying too much, which means this constant, nagging thought that I don't have much more room in my closet* would just kind of, you know, go away...

* I fix that "I don't have that much more room in my closet" dilemma by building more closets. Consider me the Patron Saint of Rescuing Shirts and Shoes from Sale Racks. I don't wanna leave the poor things without a good home, now do I? That would just be cruel.

Easter-related question FAIL. Snarky answer WIN!

Where, oh where, do I even begin? We've got 4 misspellings of "Easter Bunny" (the bad news: the question-writer's a dummy; the good news: she's consistent), a misplaced modifier that makes it looks like the news agencies (not the bunny in question) are doing perverted things, and the word "sew" used instead of "sue." There are probably other errors present, but I was giggling too hard at the aforementioned mistakes to really pay attention and look for any more.

Luckily, to make up for the question-asker's triple threat of a fail (in this case, that's a grammar fail, spelling fail, and sense of humor fail all at once!), we've got some snarky goodness goin' on in the answers to this question. Hilarious. Especially the reference to bunnies screwing like...well, bunnies. Ha!

Happy Easter those who celebrate Easter, and Happy Passover to those who celebrate Passover. And parents, just remember this--if you take your kids to see the Easter Bunny at the mall, be very wary of approaching if he's sporting a carrot boner. This has been a public service announcement from Red Pen, Inc. Enjoy your holiday! :)

What exactly is a "vechile," anyway? Sounds spicy...

This is the kind of shit I'm glad I didn't see on my own because I'm sure I would have crashed my car trying to snap a picture or get a better look at it (or bursting into giggles or tears--or maybe both).

Thankfully, JENNA not only saw this sign, but also lived to take a picture and tell the tale. She says: I have been driving under this sign for about a year now, and I have never noticed this until today. Right next to it is the same sign, but it's spelled perfectly. I risked life, limb, and the front bumper of my precious Brunhilda to get this for ya, just to ask "aren't these signs mass produced?!"

If those signs are mass-produced, then somebody made a huge FAIL. I'm hoping this hideously misspelled sign is, like, one in a million...but somehow I doubt it.

Thanks, JENNA, for snapping this great picture!

FOODIE FRIDAY for April 10, 2009 (post 2 of 2)

I thought this restaurant ad that BRIDGETE sent in was really cute and funky...until I saw the apostrophe error! So Saturday is starting April 18? I guess that's not entirely inaccurate, since 4/18 is a Saturday, but still--I don't think that's quite the message they were looking to convey...

Thanks to BRIDGETE for spotting this one. Also, I'd like to wish BRIDGETE a happy birthday...I'm not sure exactly which day her birthday is, but since I remember that she's going to The Melting Pot this weekend to celebrate, I know it's coming up soon! Happy birthday, BRIDGETE--enjoy your fondue, and don't forget to see if The Melting Pot will trade you free food and drinks in exchange for some of your grammar expertise! :)

FOODIE FRIDAY for April 10, 2009 (post 1 of 2)

Happy Friday, you guys! I'm soooooo happy the weekend is almost upon us. I'm gonna be writing, relaxing, and watching baseball games this weekend, and I can't wait to get started... I'll also probably be indulging in my new favorite snack food...I'm developing a mild addiction to the Chex Mix "Turtle" bars. They're so good, and despite the fact that they're sweet and delicious, they're only 130 calories, so I can't even really feel guilty about eating them.

And speaking of snack foods...my friend PETER found an amusing error on the front of his snack food. PETER says: "The writer of this snack food label may have observed that English is often neither elegant nor efficient. Having two vowels in health serves no communicative purpose, so why not just use one? As you can see from the photo, I have a helthy appetite for soy nuts."

I guess the folks at the grocery store don't read over the labels they put on their foods. Not that I expected their label-making machines to have spell-check or anything, but you'd think that someone would look at that label and say, "Gee, something doesn't look quite right..." (Or not!)

Thanks, PETER, for spotting this one!

Sometimes...

...being a grammarian causes problems. Especially when said grammarian takes a person's bad grammar very literally.


(This didn't happen to me, obviously; I don't have any nuts to show off. I found it on http://www.fmylife.com/.)

I feel bad for this guy--in the context of the conversation with his co-worker, "your nuts" seemed pretty straightforward and, dare I say, appropriate. I guess next time this guy wants to flirt with someone, he should find someone who doesn't make such egregious homonym errors...

I BET THEIR COPY EDITORS DIED ON OCEANIC 815 for April 9, 2009

I BET THEIR COPY EDITORS DIED ON OCEANIC 815 is the newest weekly feature on Red Pen, Inc. It's a combination of recapping last night's episode of Lost and mocking some Lost-related bad writing. We can only assume that the publications whose writing is featured here must have had copy editors aboard Oceanic 815, and once the plane crashed and the copy editors died, the cheap-ass publications didn't hire anyone else to replace them...which results in the crappy writing/grammar/spelling found in this feature.


Thank you to MAGGIE, a fellow Lostie, for finding this Lost-related error. Any good Lostie should know that the ship is the Black Rock, not the Black Rose...

OK, so last night's episode completely overwhelmed me. Am I the only one who's overwhelmed? It was a hell of an awesome episode, don't get me wrong, but my head is spinning. I knew that tonight's episode would be a Ben-centric episode, so of course it was gonna be one of those OMGWTF?!? episodes, but really. This one was pretty crazy.

* Cesar: Did that shot kill him or not? I kinda hope it did; he is/was annoying.

* Ilana: What are her and her buddies up to? And what was that "shadow of the statue" mumbo-jumbo she was spouting at Lapidus?

* Lapidus: I really like his character, but I did NOT need to see all his chest hair tonight.

* Sun: ...is all sorts of confused, wondering if her friends Jack, Kate, and Hurley were once in the Dharma Initiative, wondering how she can see Jin again, wondering how Locke is alive, and wondering what the hell Ben is up to...

* Desmond and Penny: Both appeared to make it out of the episode alive. Desmond made a nice tackle and sent Ben flying into the water, spewing blood out his face the whole time. Fun. (Did anyone else notice that the name of their boat was also the name of the book that Desmond was carrying around with him in Season 2--Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens?)

* Charles Widmore: We got a lot of backstory on him this time around. But I kinda thought that Ben having him exiled for having a kid with someone offshore was kinda lame. C'mon, Charles Widmore is a Big Baddie--make him do something more awful to get exiled! (Or was there another reason he got sent away--did I miss something?) We also see that Charles wanted Alex dead from the get-go, and we realize that Ben demonstrated that he actually has some humanity by sparing Rousseau's life AND saving Alex.

* Little Ethan: Freakin' Ethan shows up everywhere!

* Locke: Does anyone else think Locke looks much more youthful now that he's back on the island, resurrected or whatnot? I do. I liked Locke's confidence in this episode. No longer is he asking for someone to tell him what to do; he took charge and kept Ben on his path to go get judged. Locke's always been clever, but now he seems sharper. He seems...ready. Ready for...whyever he's back on the island.

* Ben: So why does Ben still want to kill Locke? Do you think he'll follow "Alex's" wishes/threat to not hurt Locke? (Even if Ben tried to kill Locke again, would the island really let him die?) What was up with Ben reaching into that murky water not long before going to visit Smokey? Didn't the hole Ben fell down in the temple look sorta similar to the well that Locke fell down in an earlier episode this season? Why was Ben getting freaked out reading the hieroglyphics in the temple? Did Smokey let him live because it realized that Ben didn't really kill Alex (maybe Widmore was right about "if the island wants Alex to die"...it'll kill her)? Was Alex really THERE, or was she some sort of manifestation of Smokey? Do you think Ben was really surprised that Smokey let him live, or did he expect that all along?

* On next week's preview: Looks like Miles will factor heavily in this episode. I wonder who's in the body bag...

What did you think of tonight's episode? Sound off in the Comments section...

How many times must I tell you...

Quit screwing up King BILF's name! Poor Cole Hamels. He doesn't have a difficult name to spell, but man, he really seems to attract the grammar and spelling errors, doesn't he? (Theory: He needs his own personal Grammarphile to ward away such mishaps. I know, I know--it would be really tough, leaving my job whose office is in the heart of Mets territory to go and follow Mr. Hamels around, shooing away grammar and spelling errors all day long, but I suppose I could find it in my heart to volunteer for this job...)

Hat tip to PAT, who found this picture over at THE FIGHTINS. (And by the way? Phillies? World Phucking Champions? You guys are really beginning to embarrass me. And you are killing all three teams of my BILFs. Do you know how bad it is when I'm less embarrassed to have Jeff Francoeur on one of my teams than I am to have Shane Victorino? Sigh. Step it up, boys!)

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for April 8, 2009

So last night, I was trying to find something to use for this week's installment of Hump Day Grammar. First I put up a message on Facebook announcing that I was looking for a Hump Day Grammar submission, and then I found an article that included a sentence that mentioned what may or may not be the correct possessive form of the word penis. So then I was stumped--I was trying to research whether it would be penis's or penis', and so I sent out a bunch of messages to various friends asking them for their opinion on this extremely important topic. (None of my friends seemed particularly surprised that I was messaging them around midnight to ask what the possessive form of "penis" is. Hmmm...) Everyone else seemed just as unsure about the possessive form of "penis" as I was (one friend noted that if we're going by AP style, it should probably be penis', but also acknowledged that it looked/seemed better as penis's, and my other friends and I also shared the opinion that penis's just looked the most right).

Luckily, though, before I was forced to actually find out the correct answer to this question, I got another Hump Day Grammar submission that is much more clever than anything involving the possessive form of "penis." PETER saw my cry for Hump Day help on Facebook and responded with an article that definitely fit the Hump Day bill. I mean, it is, after all, concerning humps. Large humps.

Behold the most clever, yet most innocent, Hump Day Grammar post to date--



My favorite part of the article is the bottom paragraph shown here. They make it sound like a camel's hump gets erectile dysfunction. Apparently the camel's natural resiliency acts as its own special form of Viagra. Good deal!

And on that note, we're back on the topic of penis. Dear readers, what do you think the possessive form of "penis" is? Sound off in the Comments section below...an inquiring (and rather stumped) Grammarphile wants to know your thoughts on this matter!

Special thanks to PETER for finding this amusing picture, and also thank you to all my friends who got random penis-related messages from me last night!

Lost and found, and found *again*...

The Department of Redundancy Department strikes again. This time, they're finding bodies...that have already been found! Way to go, you guys!

Thanks to JANINE for finding this funny headline!

Good grammar is "appreciate," too...

I got quite a chuckle out of this picture, which came from PAT (who found it on SARAH's Facebook page). I'm not sure which is more amusing: the random quotation marks, the lack of agreement, or the smiley and frowny faces with which someone decorated this tip cup.

PAT says, I've got a tip for whoever wrote that: Learn English.

Clearly, the person who wrote this isn't cut out to be a grammarian, but it looks like he or she could have a fabulous career in...emoticons? I dunno. I'm reaching here...

Thanks to PAT for spotting this one!

MISSPELLING MONDAY for April 6, 2009

I'm less interested in jewelry trends and much, much more interested in spelling trends. And as far as I'm concerned, the spelling trend should always be (or at least strive to be) "correct." Lavender (spelled correctly) might reflect a current trend in jewelry, but lavendar (spelled incorrectly) isn't following the jewelry trend of purple or the spelling trend of correctness.

Jewel Club--you've given us a spelling FAIL!

Big Papi wants *what*...?

I know a lot of Red Pen, Inc. readers are Red Sox fans, so I'm sure you guys will enjoy this amusing typo found by BECKY from Apostrophe Catastrophes.

It looks like David Ortiz wants to impose a very harsh punishment for players who test positive for 'roids. He wants those players to get banged for a whole year. I imagine this punishment would really suck if the players in question were stuck banging people who are repulsive...

(Other news outlets reported that Ortiz said "Ban them for a whole year," which makes a lot more sense; we've gotta assume that "bang" is a typo here.)

Thanks, BECKY, for finding this funny mistake! To the Sawx Fans, Yanks fans, and fans of pretty much all other teams (I think it's just the Brewers and Giants fans who have to wait until Tuesday to see their favorite team's first game of the season), enjoy watching your favorite team's first game of the regular season today! Since my Phillies don't play today, I'll be cheering on my second favorite team today--the Minnesota Twins!