MISSPELLING MONDAY for June 28, 2010

Actually, I think the real vacancy (note the second c I included to spell the word correctly, folks!) is the space where spelling skills should be (but clearly aren't) in the sign-maker's head. I think this building's landlord has a similar mental and intellectual vacancy, since he hung up this screwy sign.

Thanks to ARJEWTINO for spotting this one!

I'm ba-aaaaack!

I'm finally back and in blogging mode again! No, I didn't hop aboard the Twins' plane in Philly and hitch a ride back with them, nor did any of them kidnap me--unfortunate on both counts *sigh*. But I did see some awesome baseball games...

...and no, not from my armchair (or the, um, couch--for those who are furniturely-challenged)*. I actually went to Citizens Bank Park wearing both Phillies and Twins gear, cheered for both teams, and tried to meet players on one team.

This is Justin Morneau and the back of my head. He signed a ball for me. And he had seriously gorgeous blue eyes. Dreamy!

I managed to meet seven Twins (Morneau, Butera, Tolbert, Mahay, Crain, Guerrier, and Baker). I'm sure you've already guessed that I was really freakin' giddy and giggly the whole weekend. ;)

And now I'm back in NY, working on writing my books...

I assure you I am not writing "quicky fiction,"** although I do hope it'll be fun...to read, at least. (It is not always fun to write. It will be very fun when it stops and I have two actual manuscripts in front of me.) Is it just me and my gutter-dwelling mind, or does "quicky fiction" sound kinda dirty?

I've got more baseball on tap for this weekend--attending a Twins/Mets game and screaming like crazy for the M&M boys!

* This picture was taken by WIL. I'm embarrassed to see that this billboard was created to promote the Phillies' farm team. Yikes!

** JEANNE spotted this picture in Borders. I wonder if that "quicky" is supposed to be "quirky"? Even still, what would constitute "fun & quirky fiction"?

Baseball giddiness...and some baseball-related errors, too!

I have baseball on the brain even more than usual. In just a few hours, I hop a train to Philly to see the interleague series between the Phillies and the Twins! This is like Christmas for a boy-crazy baseball fanatic like me. The two best-looking teams in baseball (not coincidentally, they are my favorite teams) in the same stadium...heaven! Plus, the good news is that one of my two favorite teams will win on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! (The obvious downside: The other one of my favorite teams will lose. Oh well...c'est la vie.)

The Phillies played a hot game against the Yankees last night, winning 6-3. But Phillies-related writing hasn't been nearly as hot lately...

I'm really curious to know who Phil is and why he will singlehandedly be playing the Jays. (I'm guessing they meant to say Phils, plural...) But hey, the Phillies have been a little slumpy lately, and if Phil's not prone to striking out, I say let the current Phillies rest for a day and put Phil in the game to see how he can do...

And then there's this little gem...

Shane's last name is Victorino. Jayson's last name is Werth. Jayson's last name is not Victorino...unless, like, they got married or something...but they both seem pretty heterosexual, so I doubt that's the case. An error like "Jayson Victorino" is like the grounding-into-a-double-play of grammar (translation: it's really sucky).

I'll be on a baseball high all weekend long...but I'll be back atcha Tuesday with more grammar snafus! :)

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for June 16, 2010

Maybe I just have a realllllly perverted mind, but I giggled a lot when I saw this error. Thinking of someone's concert getting fisted just brings giggles and smirks to my lips, you know? (I giggle at any funny-sounding use of fist or fisted; watching a televised baseball game where a sportscaster says the ball got fisted makes me momentarily turn my attention away from Joe Mauer's sweet butt and makes me giggle.)

Thanks, LadyStyx, for finding this one! Also, this post is dedicated to the fabulous EVula, whose mind needed a little detour to the gutter. ;)

TO/TOO/TWO TUESDAY for June 15, 2010

If any of you read Gawker, you've probably noticed that they're enjoying the hell out of mocking American Apparel for their silly dressing/grooming requirements. I find it ironic that while folks in management at AA act like elitist jerks, not letting any "uglies" work for them (and then making the non-uglies who are okayed to work for them conform to ridiculous clothing/grooming standards), they're not paying attention to how ugly their grammar and spelling skills are.

While perusing some of the AA documents Gawker's posted on its website, I've seen a lot of crappy spelling and grammar. Here's just one print-screened example--a homonym error followed a few paragraphs later by a completely stupid misspelling of Doc Martens.

Also, on a non-grammar-related note, what the hell is AA's obsession with white Keds? I'm so glad I have never wanted to work at an AA--any fashion-oriented place that would approve of me wearing white Keds is not somewhere I'd feel comfortable working (unless they make white Keds stilettos that I don't know about...?).

A little baseball snarkiness for my fellow Phillies fans:

I'm a little cranky about baseball lately since the Phillies have suddenly decided they forget how to score runs. Grrr.

But here's a piece of good news: The Mets (booooo!) might be above us in the standings right now, but at least the Phillies aren't homeless like the Mets are! I always knew they were a silly bunch of vagabonds, and this headline confirms it! ;)

This one's for the Truebies...

Look, I get it. I totally understand how you could be distracted by thoughts of this...

...while you're trying to write your True Blood recap. But the man does have a name, you know...and it's Alexander Skarsgard, who plays Eric Northman on TV. His name is not Eric Skarsgard *sigh*.

Probably one great way to piss off a vampire is to screw up his name. EW writer, whoever you are, I'd watch your back (or neck) if I were you--you may be seeing a pair of angry fangs in your future! ;)

FOODIE FRIDAY for June 11, 2010

CASEY sent in these errors...which are atrocious enough to make you lose your appetite. "Peices" is annoying (and really, even a second-grader should be able to spell "Pieces" correctly)...but it's "Potatoe" that really gets me. Potato salad normally grosses me out (mayonnaise? ewww!), but add a "toe" into the mix, and it gets even more gross.

Potatoe salad... *shudder* If anybody wants the last half of my Easy Mac, it's yours...I've lost my appetite!

They really should pray for better-written signage...

YOURS TRULY, who is going through Sawyer withdrawal just like I am, seems to be feeling especially snarky these days as she tries to get by without her weekly "Son of a bitch!" fix. She says, "I refuse to help churches with shitty sentence structure."

I would have said "Yard sale to benefit church" if I'd been the one making the sign...but since I'm pretty sure I'd get struck by lightning if I ever get too close to a church, I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to make such a sign. ;) Thanks, YOURS TRULY, for this drive-by photo shooting!

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for June 9, 2010

According to my friend JUSTIN, this is some sort of game or app for the iPhone. While I applaud its designers for promoting safer sex, I'm kind of scratching my head over their grammar.

I'm really hoping this is an instance of Engrish--because if it isn't, then "Your uncare about health and safety is results in death" is truly terrifying. I'm also confused about "You can play with accelerometer"--I know that iPhones feature accelerometers, but in this context, doesn't it kinda sound like a euphemism for something? (Quit stroking your accelerometers and FOCUS ON GRAMMAR, you guys!)

Thanks, JUSTIN, for this one! And to all my lovely readers--hump away on Hump Day (or any other day, for that matter), but always practice safe sex! Scary diseases like syphilis make you go kinda nuts in the head, which would probably have quite a horrible impact upon your fabulous grammar skills. ;)

THID.

In case you, too, were wondering what the hell "THID" is, I imagine it's the sound we hear when the first place team falls all the way to last place in the standings. Luckily that hasn't happened with the Phillies yet...although if they don't remember how to hit soon, it is going to happen.

Let's hope we never hear that sound. At least not this season. At least not while I'm living/working in the heart of Mets territory and have to take crap from the Mets fans. No THIDDING this year, Phillies...mmkay? ;)

Perfect attendance--yes. Perfect grammar and spelling? No way!

I'm going to safely assume that since Raquel Torres was so diligent about attending school, she must have picked up some grammar and spelling skills along the way. In fact, I'm going to bet that she has more/better grammar and spelling skills than the person who wrote this article. It wouldn't surprise me if this writer spent most of his English periods smoking in the bathroom.

Apostrophe catastrophes? Copious amounts of misspellings? Homonym horrors? Someone please tell me why this person's writing and getting paid for it. Seriously, does he have compromising pictures of his manager and a goat? Because that's the only plausible explanation I can think of...

*shakes head* Some people shouldn't even be allowed to get near computers if this is how they're gonna write. And to write an article about something education-related in such an uneducated way...this writer should be ashamed of himself!

Lazy, link-laden Monday...

So today I'm lazy and cranky because I went to the dentist to have a few fillings done. These hurt more than the root canal I had done a few years ago. (This is because I have incredibly sensitive teeth and also because I have TMJ, which means I have flare-ups and muscle spasms whenever I've been stuck full of Novocaine.) I'm hungry and I can't eat--well, I'm eating soup, but I am not going to dare eating anything besides soup for the rest of today since I am certain it's going to hurt to chew (it's not my teeth that will hurt--it's my jaw and its surrounding muscles, all TMJ-related).

Luckily, a few wonderful Red Pen readers provided me with some entertaining material to share with you guys in the interim. BRIDGETE shares her story about why actual human proofreading skills are totally a necessity:

So, I'm working away on a document in Microsoft Word. I have it set to check grammar and spelling as I type. I tend to use the little green underlines to clue me in to sentence fragments because that's generally the only thing it catches for me. So when it does appear on something other than a sentence fragment, I feel compelled to check it out, thinking I may be able to learn from it. Well, today, it was so blatantly wrong I did an immediate *facepalm*. I wrote, "The document can only be read into evidence..." and I got the green underline on "document can". I investigated, and it claims I had a lack of verb agreement. Microsoft Word apparently thinks the singular form of "can" is "cans". However, you and I both know this is completely wrong, and I would sound like an idiot if I ever said, "The document cans only be read into evidence." Thus, the moral of the story is -- you must independently know the basics of spelling and grammar. Microsoft Word does not know all, and is not an adequate replacement for proofreading.

And she also sent along this very amusing video about why proofreading is important:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonDPGwAyfQ

And from KEVIN, here's something that should be filed under "Stuff written by people who clearly should not reproduce":
http://hooniverse.com/blog/2010/05/28/last-call-can-you-believe-they-want-2-99-for-one-of-those-baby-on-board-signs-edition/

I'll be back tomorrow when my jaw and teeth feel better and I can actually smile with both sides of my mouth (because of the damn Novocaine, I can presently only smile with one side of my mouth...*sigh*).

HUMP DAY GRAMMAR for June 2, 2010

Well, you guys, Hump Day Grammar is back with a vengeance. A very, um, forceful vengeance. Lookie what we've got here:

Now, broccoli rabe is some sort of crazy thing that native New Yorkers seem to enjoy. I've never tried it, but I have seen other people eating it. And so far I haven't witnessed any rape in conjunction with people eating broccoli rabe. But then again, I have apparently not been hitting up the right restaurants for that.

Oh, look--here they do it again, at another point on the same menu:

Now that you know you have two options, would you prefer your rape with sausage or with garlic and oil?

To add to the hilarity, this is a "family-style" restaurant (because rape always tastes better family-style, right?)...and they also serve "expresso." *headdesk*

Happy Hump Day, you wild and crazy kids. Oh, and keep it consensual, you hear? The Grammarphile does not condone rape...or godawful typos. ;)

Where, oh where, has that Grammarphile been...?

Yes, it's been a while. I've been a busy girl! Let me tell you what I've been up to lately...

I was off with my dad meeting Mr. Perfect, Roy Halladay...

I was also meeting Mr. Perfect-Looking (otherwise known as BILFy McBILF, real name: Cole Hamels)...

I was trying to gather photographic evidence to convince you guys that I was doing naughty things with hot baseball players (for the record, this picture is of a hug...I swear!)...

I was finding spelling errors on tickets to meet said hot ballplayers...

I was being attacked (OK, hugged) by big, green monsters (that's Phoebe Phanatic, the Phillie Phanatic's mother)...

For the Lost fans here--I was checking out Jughead...

...and wondering if this door really led to the Temple (it didn't--but it really was the Temple door)...

...and wishing I could take the Dharma bus for a little joyride...

...and checking out other cool stuff from Lost, including Faraday's journal, Locke's letter to Jack, Juliet's Dharma rum, and more!

So yeah, that's what I've been up to lately. I'll be back with more crappy grammar soon... ;)