Friday, May 2, 2008

Why My Bags Got Searched Twice at the Airport

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I didn't see very many punctuation errors in Bermuda. One of the few that I did notice was this sign, which uses an apostrophe where an accent aigu should be:



Sure, it's a bit strange, but I was on the beach, and life was good.

Everything changed when I entered U.S. Customs at the Bermuda Airport and saw this sign:



Putting quotation marks around a word for emphasis is a very common mistake, but it's pretty appalling to see it on an official sign at the airport. I tried to take the photo as quickly as possible to avoid being spotted by security, so I apologize for its poor quality. I put my camera back in my backpack and prayed that I wouldn't be sent to Guantanamo Bay. Then I turned the corner through the maze of blue ropes and saw something even more bizarre.



I thought about waterboarding and being the subject of an Amnesty International campaign, but I had to to capture this horrendous misuse of quotation marks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I too abhor incorrect punctuation, as nature abhors a vacuum. - Nate A.

Thebigragoo said...

I have this problem with quotation marks. Whenever I see them in writing, enclosing just one word, they denote sarcasm to me. Which makes reading things like this much more fun.