Tricks and treats from Red Pen, Inc.

I keep forgetting it's Halloween, since I'm in baseball mode these days (really, is there anything else going on in the world besides the World Series?). Plus, I've been having killer migraines all this week, so I haven't even felt like being particularly snarky. *sigh*

I hope your Halloween is filled with lots of these...



...and these (ooh, two misspellings in one picture!)...



...and better costumes than this one.


ROB writes, "This came from my local "FreeCycle" email list. I feel for this poor boy if his mother is helping him with his English homework." Hmmm, if that were me writing that message, I'd have asked for a "men's white" shirt instead of a "white men's" shirt so that I wouldn't risk appearing racist... ;)

Happy Halloween, everyone! And for those of you watching the baseball game like I am...GO, PHILLIES!!!

The Dept. of Redundancy Dept. wants to sell you a baseball...

The "autographed signatures"? Isn't that kinda like saying Chase Utley is a spectacular infield second baseman? Or that Cliff Lee pitched a whole complete game last night?

Yeah, I'm on a Phillies high (click here for more baseball ramblings)... :)

Dear New York Post:

Perhaps if you weren't so busy trashing my Phillies in your little piece of crap newspaper, you would remember to omit unnecessary apostrophes, write sentences better than those your average third-grader could write--oh, and correctly spell Yankees ballplayers' names. I realize that Hideki Matsui is pictured here in a suit, but that doesn't mean that the word suit needs to show up in his last name.

And for the record, Phillies babes are hotter than Yankees babes. (Hamels and Utley, for instance, have hot wives. OK, fine--Minka Kelly and Kate Hudson are pretty and famous. But to balance those two out, whenever I see pictures of Sabathia's and Damon's wives, I can't help wondering if they went through certain operations to, um, become wives.)

In summary: New York Post, please kindly shut the fuck up.

Love,
The Grammarphile

P.S. GO PHILLIES!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for October 29, 2009

With Halloween quickly approaching, I figured this was a fun, topical Hump Day-esque picture.

LINDA, who took this picture, writes: While out searching for a non-slutbag Halloween costume, my friend Lea Ann and I came across this. As if turning the Cowardly Lion into some kind of deranged sex kitten wasn't bad enough, the proofreaders on the packaging company staff decided to make this costume even dirtier. I give you...the Cuddly Loin!

Meeeee-ow!

Happy Hump Day, you crazy kids!

MISSPELLING MONDAY for October 26, 2009

I am so not ready for it to be Monday today. Not ready at all.

The World Series starts this week. On Wednesday, to be precise. I'm excited to watch, but also equally excited that baseball's coming to an end by some point next week. The past few weeks of playoffs have been one gigantic near-heart attack for me. I'm only 28 years old. I should so not be near heart attacks, haha. But my racing brain and my sore throat (from screaming at the games) and my poor little heart need a rest. Yes, a rest from baseball.

Up until last night, it wasn't decided who would be facing my Phillies in the World Series...but now we know. It's these guys...



The New York Yankees. Hopefully they only hit so-so (as opposed to solo) home runs in this series...or better yet, none at all. ;) (OK, with folks like A-Rod and Jeter on the team, that's not gonna happen. But a girl can dream, can't she?)

Thanks to PHRANK, a Yankees fan, for spotting this funny error!

It's a phucking misplaced modifier...

Y'know, I don't even really give a damn that the Phillies' web folks made a retarded misplaced modifier error in this e-mail blast they sent out (they really should have said "...featuring articles you won't find anywhere else on the Philadelphia Phillies..." since obviously they don't have the ONLY publication that ever writes about the Phillies).

The reason I don't care is because the Phillies made it into the World Series for the second consecutive year.

And that is fucking (phucking!) awesome.

So you know what, Phillies web people? Rock on with your bad [grammar] selves for the next couple days, because all I really care about is seeing my boys in red and white win the Fall Classic again. You people could screw up the names of all my favorite players (yes, even Cole Hamels), and I'd just laugh it off.

Yep, the Grammarphile has actually issued somebody a free pass on these sorts of errors. That's serious and unprecedented. (Well, that and the fact that I know I'll be so sleep-deprived from watching World Series games that I might not even see said grammar/spelling errors in whatever e-mails the Phillies send out. Whatever.)

Congratulations to the Phillies, the National League Champions...again!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for October 21, 2009

I might have to start calling LadyStyx the Queen of Spam. She really does find all the best spam. And why they're sending her--a female--all sorts of penis enlargement spam, I really have no idea...but it works out well for me, since she is so kind to send it over so I can use it to provide Hump Day giggles for you guys.

These Extenze folks are advertising three more inches in just one month, plus you'll gain "confidance." I dunno if I believe this... Perhaps you'll just gain a case of misspellingitis, which I've always feared is quite contagious...

Thanks, LadyStyx, for spotting this error!

TO/TOO/TWO TUESDAY for October 20, 2009

Call the Grammar Police...


VICKI D. spotted two grammar errors for us! The led/lead error is a common homonym mistake (which, of course, irks me to no end because these really are simple words, people!). But capture/captor (not exactly a homonym mistake...homophone, to some degree? Kinda-sorta?) is just...bizarre. Way to go confusing your nouns and verbs, idiot writer!

Thanks, VICKI, for spotting these!

FOODIE FRIDAY for October 16, 2009

It's your way, right away...unless you want it spelled properly. Then you're pretty SOL.

Thanks to WINONA for spotting this whopper of a misspelling!

To use "to" or not to use "to"--that is the question...

Oh, Copyeditors Needed Now, I thought perhaps you'd fired that goober who does such a crappy job writing the Breaking News headlines. You'd been on your game for a while, and so I thought you'd ditched that employee. It warms my heart that in this economy, you haven't been so mean as to fling this proofreading-impaired person out into the cold with no job. EVEN THOUGH HE WOULD KINDA DESERVE IT.

So nice of you to provide me with some material for RPI on an otherwise slow news day, Copyeditors Needed Now. Much appreciated!

Some beary bad spelling...

This Cub Scout leader (or den mother? Is that what they're called?) should feel quite embarrassed for making such a heinous spelling error and then distributing it to children--many of whom, I suspect, are actually capable of correctly spelling the word that their leader misspelled.

PAULA says, "This is a picture of an actual flier that my son brought home from school. It is for an informational meeting about the Cub Scouts. I am torn as to whether I should find this hilarious or absolutely appalling. I think I will go with appalling since these people are putting themselves forth as role models for young children."



Looks like this Cub Scout pack leader wasn't there on the day everyone earned their spelling patches...

Thanks, PAULA, for spotting this mistake!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for October 14, 2009

Holy crap, it's Wednesday already? When the hell did that happen? I suppose time flies when you're having fun entirely and rather maniacally focused on baseball playoffs, huh?

So anyway, for this installment of Hump Day Grammar, break out the condoms...you'll need 'em. Here come the hookers and hoes!

The folks affiliated with these hookers are obviously spelling-impaired...



...and some hoe must've been blowing this webmaster under the desk in order for him to be so distracted that he made this silly error:


So there you go--hookers and hoes, as promised. Now you can't say I never gave you anything...

(Thanks to YVIE for sending the hookers my way and to DAVE T. for passing along the hoes!)

Happy Hump Day, you wild and crazy kids!

TO/TOO/TWO TUESDAY for October 13, 2009

Ooh, a lipstick that becomes your perfect shade and says kind things to you while you're wearing it? In that case, you're getting quite the bargain for a mere $22.

Next up, somebody should invent a lipstick that tells you if you're spelling something incorrectly or using the wrong word...

It was a little game of leapfrog...

So during last night's ballgame (in which the Phillies beat the Rockies by a score of 5-4 to advance to the NLCS), this one Rockie, Dexter Fowler, made this crazy leap over my boy Chase Utley to get to second base. If you ask me, it was offensive interference, but hey, I'm not a ref (and it doesn't matter anyway, since the Phillies freakin' WON).

Anyway, while recapping this crazy play online, somebody made a little spelling error...



Yes, Fowler's leap was amazing, but misspelling an easy word like leapt? Totally not amazing at all!

WTF? No, seriously--WTF?

By now everyone knows that President Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize. And after reading this article about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I'm convinced that there needs to be another award created...

FOR RETARDED WRITERS AND/OR EDITORS.

Because, really, WTF is this?

Anybody care to translate that? I'm clueless as to what exactly that all means...

The good news is that at least we have now found a worthy candidate for the Dumbass Wordsmith Award...

Thanks to KATI M. for spotting this ridiculous article!

This apostrophe error is OUTTA HERE!

So last week, I went back to my hometown of Philly for some playoff baseball festivities (phestivities is more accurate). You can read all about it (and see pictures of some of my favorite BILFs) by clicking here. But since I know that most of you are here for the grammar errors, never fear--I found a fun baseball-related error at the ballpark! (This is proof that I really did watch more things at the ballpark besides gorgeous Cliff Lee and Jayson Werth's nice ass.)

So the Phillies had a very famous broadcaster named Harry Kalas. Harry had been with the team for-freakin'-ever...until he died at the beginning of this year's baseball season. One of his most famous calls was "That ball is OUTTA HERE!!!!"--which he'd say when a Phillie hit a home run. At the playoff game I attended, they did something on Phanavision where they wanted the Phillies fans (phans!) to choose the Harry Kalas call they liked the best. As you can see below, the "That ball's OUTTA HERE!!!!" call was one of the ones from which the phans could choose...except somewhere along the way, the apostrophe got lost.

I am certain that Kalas never wanted to talk about balls. He obviously wanted to talk about ball is, as in "That ball is out of here!!!!"

And guess which Harry Kalas call the phans liked best? (Here's a hint: it's missing an apostrophe...)

Nope, they didn't bother to add the apostrophe into that version, either. *sigh*

So yeah, I'm back from Philly, but I've still got quite the case of baseball fever. ;) Never fear, though--I'll be posting funny RPI-worthy errors all week long!

I'm sick...

...well, sorta.

I've caught a case of Phillies Fever Phever.

I'm off to Philly for most of the week to go to a playoff game and cheer on my boys in red and white. (If you hear shrieks and squeals that sound something like "COLE HAMELS, YOU ARE THE HOTTEST MAN ALIVE!!!!!" or "COLE HAMELS, I LOVE YOU, YOU SEXY BILF!!!!" and that are coming from the direction of Pennsylvania, you'll know I made it to Philly just fine. ;)

In the meantime I'm on vacation from, well, pretty much everything but baseball. It's a cowbell-ringing, putting-temporary-red-streaks-in-my-hair, ballplayer-ogling, screaming-at-the-top-of-my-lungs kind of vacation, but a vacation nonetheless. And it's gonna be a damn good time.

I'll talk to y'all next Monday...when I've calmed down from going to my first playoff game since 1993, my (inevitably) sore throat has recovered, and I've stopped squealing joyful baseball-related squeals... :)

FOODIE FRIDAY for October 2, 2009

It's finally Friday. Not that that really matters to me anyway, because I'll inevitably spend the weekend completely stressed out due to baseball jitters. My favorite baseball team has clinched a playoff berth, but they have not yet gotten home-field advantage for the division series...and that needs to happen if I'm to see them play next week. And my second-favorite baseball team is still fighting for a playoff spot. So yeah, no rest for the weary this weekend. My mind's on BILFs and playoffs!

I'm also not engaging in any activities that may screw up my baseball karma. See, now's about the time where I start being a good girl and not doing anything, like making fun of hapless teams and/or engaging in unnecessary booing, etc, that will mess up my baseball karma. It's playoff time, and I'd like to do my part to keep the baseball gods happy so that they shine some rays of winning light down upon my Phillies instead of thinking, "Those Phillies fans are jerks. Let's make the Phillies lose in a spectacular and embarrassing fashion; those evil fans don't need another championship so soon."

I assure you, I'm not on crack. (Really, I'm not. Promise!) But whoever wrote the below copy probably was...

I wonder what kind of deserts they offer at Buca di Beppo. Hopefully nothing too, um, sandy.

But wait...

Jack in the Box also serves deserts! Funny, that little Bundt cake doesn't look like it's made of sand...but what's that stuff on the bottom of the cheesecake? Could be a yummy graham cracker crust--or it could be sand... (I'll take the former, please--not the latter!)

Have a great weekend, everyone! I'll be back with more grammar and spelling fun on Monday...if I haven't had a freakin' stroke from worrying about baseball!

* Note: I can't blame the official Buca di Beppo and Jack in the Box websites for these errors; these mistakes came from a coupon website. Dummies!

It's gonna be another red October...

The Phillies have made it into the postseason--and I've already started finding playoffs-related errors to mock...



*sigh* Close, MLB, but you guys got the wrong word. This should say passed, not past...

Speaking of postseason tickets, there's a possibility that I might actually be going to a Phillies playoff game this year! And if that happens, I'll be the happiest girl on the planet...

Congrats to the Phillies for being the National League East (Phucking) Champions for the third year in a row! Congrats, too, to the other teams who have clinched playoff spots so far--the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cardinals, and Dodgers!

(For you non-baseball fans, there will be a non-baseball-related RPI post later in the day to keep you guys entertained. In the meantime, I'm off to be all hyper and squealy and "OMG Phillies!"...)