Grammar

[eruthros]

Seen today in the window of a women's clothing store: "'its' here." Repeated in every window of the store. Now, there are two major things wrong with that: one, it should be "it's." Unless "here" is suddenly a noun that can belong to an it and no-one bothered to tell me. Also, the use of quotation marks there is egregious. Even worse than most cases where quotation marks are misused as indicating emphasis, in large part because I can't see how emphasis would go there at all. I mean, The "New" Jury Room -- horrible and wrong and seems to mean the reverse of what it says but at least you know what they're trying to say. They're out of italics, clearly, and want to emphasize the newness anyway. But just try that with "'its' here." Say "it's here" out loud. Right. My point exactly. You say "it's here" if you want to put emphasis in there. And yet this was a window of a classy shop on Market Street. Sigh.

At the flower show, in the booth belonging to the National Ivy League: "kids'll will eat ivy too." Um?

Also at the flower show, in the booth of the African Violet people: "Scientist's and the government of Kenya..." Stop. Just stop there. Oy.

Some days are just not good for the grammar.

Comments

[m-shell.livejournal.com]

At the flower show, in the booth belonging to the National Ivy League: "kids'll will eat ivy too." Um?

It's from an odd nursery rhyme-y/song type thing, "Mairzy Doats:" (http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/MarzyDoats/)
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?

Though of course it's sposed to be "kids'll eat ivy too" not "kids'll will eat ivy too."

[eruthros]

Exactly. I know the song, but the fact that it said "a kid'll will" distressed me, because it may indicate that the person who wrote that poster (which had the whole song on) doesn't know what "'ll" means.

[oralelk.livejournal.com]

Maybe they meant to say the new batch of its just came in, and they'd be happy to sell some to you. You never know when you need an it.

As for the scientist's, I'm sure you know the old Dave Barry "Dear Mr. Language Person" article in which he explains that the function of the apostrophe is to signal than an S is coming up at the end of a word?

[eruthros]

True, true. You might not want to go somewhere else and get its left over from last week when you could get some nice fresh its.

Heh. Dave Barry is sometimes hilarious. I remember that article fondly.

[casira.livejournal.com]

*shudder* Oh, the pain.

Another thing that bothers me: the use of quotation marks to stress something. Every time someone does that, I want to scream at them that that's not what quotes are for. That's what -- well, italics are for.

Today I saw a sign on a cash register that said (paraphrased slightly), "Your meal is 'free' if we do not give you a receipt."

What exactly they meant by "free", I don't know.... ;)

[eruthros]

TANSTAAFL, is what I think they mean. *g* Because, see, they're big sf geeks and wanted to reference Heinlein. Or not. *g* (Speaking of, did you know there's a Tanstaafl Press now? Weird.)

Do you ever have the temptation to pull people aside and say "I do not think that means what you think it means?" In Inigo Montoya's voice? 'Cause I sure do.

[planetdracula.livejournal.com]

You can't let the stray apostrophes get to you, it'll drive you insane. This is not a battle we can win. Sooner or later the apostrophe will go the way of the interabang, except that the interabang never gained currency.

Quote marks for emphasis, as noted above, are classic, because they seem to do the opposite of what they're trying to do. "Your meal is 'free' if you don't get it within 15 minutes" = "We don't actually mean 'free.'"

[eruthros]

Oh, I know. I don't stomp around and yell at people or anything. But it is a little distressing, or irritating, especially when you see it so many times in a single day.

I love quote marks for emphasis. "The 'New' Jury Room" was a bar a few blocks from my last apartment. I knew that they meant they'd redesigned or it was under new management or something, but it seemed really appropriate that it was in quotes, because it had in fact been "The 'New' Jury Room" for five years. *g*