Weinergate Sext Catastrophe

The Daily Show has been having a field day reporting on all the sordid details about Anthony Weiner's scandalous Tweets and texts. A lot of people are appalled by the Weiners's lying and cheating, but to me, the most disturbing part of this whole sex scandal is the congressman's poor punctuation.


For that alone, Weiner ought to resign from office.

Todd Palin Angry E-mail Catastrophe

Sarah Palin's husband, Todd, apparently sent an angry e-mail to Joe Miller after Miller refused to endorse Sarah for president.

The grammar and punctuation in Todd's e-mail are appalling! The worst part is when he writes, "Put yourself in her shoe's Joe for one day."

Shoe is Joe? What does that mean?

LeBron James: Witness to Bad Punctuation (Again)

My friend/former co-worker Amy, who is originally from Cleveland, sent me this photo from Cleveland.com.


I understand that fans are devastated by The King's betrayal, but that does not excuse their poor punctuation.

Thanks, Amy! And sorry about LeBron...

Nice "Decision," LeBron

Bitterness apparently leads to unnecessary quotation marks, as evidenced by this bizarre letter written by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. That semicolon at the beginning should be a colon, and let's not even talk about the comic sans. Or the passive-aggressiveness. Or the odd reference to death and heaven.

Thanks to my friend Dave for encouraging me to read this letter.

Cambridge Police: Stupid or Not? Let's Look at the Police Report

The biggest news story in the world today is the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. Earlier this week, Cambridge police were called to Professor Gates' home when a passerby reported that two men were trying to break in. Turns out that one of the men was Gates, who lived there, and his front door was jammed. Everyone is weighing in on this issue, even our president. Was the arresting officer racist? President Obama said that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly."

For the purposes of this blog, the important question is, did the Cambridge police write stupidly in the police report about the incident?


There are a couple of missing commas and places where the punctuation should be inside the quotation marks, but overall, this report is pretty well written. The one glaring error is a your/you're confusion in one of Gates' quotes. I'm certain that the scholar meant to say, "You don't know who you're messing with!"

Still, this police report was better than I had been expecting, so, the jury's still out. I'm sure we'll hear plenty more about this story in the next few days. It even made the homepage of the London Times online, along with Amy Winehouse's latest antics.

This Ought to Tip the Scales in Favor of Al Franken

Senator (?) Norm Coleman released a cringe-worthy statement about the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Besides being delusional ("When I am re-elected..."), it contains a glaring apostrophe catastrophe in the last line. I underlined the error in red in the screenshot below.


This is from his own blog! Someone needs to hire better proofreaders.

Bad Punctuation Is So NOT Rad

Jennifer spotted this shirt in the Dillard's department store in Parkway Place Mall, Huntsville, AL:


She was surprised that the shirt was not on the clearance rack.

Thanks, Jennifer!

What is it about printing text on shirts that causes people to lose their grasp of the English language? Even Major League Baseball can't get it right.

What a Difference an Apostrophe Makes

Everyone was Irish yesterday, including President Barack O'Bama.


From the Boston Globe report:
Addressing the visiting Irish prime minister Brian Cowen, the president said, "Taoiseach, I hope our efforts today put me on the path of earning that apostrophe."

Birmingham Bans Apostrophes

I just read some terrible news. Birmingham, England, is banning apostrophes on road signs to avoid confusion. This is a travesty! Lynne Truss, it time for you to take a trip to Brum to protest this terrible decision.

As If a Murder-Suicide Weren't Tragic Enough

A local South Carolina newspaper added insult to injury when it committed an apostrophe catastrophe when reporting on a murder-suicide. See the line about the "womans friend" in the screenshot below.


Thanks to another Becky for sending this one in.

Punctuation Police, Arrest This Man

According to a story in the Boston Globe, a Massachusetts man was recently arrested for stealing money that donors thought was going to military families. Paul K. Guilmain Jr. posed as National Guard member at a Stop & Shop in Woburn and made off with about $150. Even worse than the fraud, Guilmain held a sign that said, "MILITARY FAMILY'S FOR THE HOLIDAYS."

Stupid, stupid criminals....

Thanks to my friends Tori and Dave for alerting me to this egregious crime.

Apostrophe Catastrophe in the New York Times

Alert reader Tom sent me a link to this article in the New York Times, which contains an apostrophe catastrophe. Check out the third paragraph in the screenshot below.


I'm not sure if the writer meant "Bush's guest list" or "the Bushes' guest list," but "Bushes guest list" (without an apostrophe) is certainly wrong.

Thanks, Tom!

Prince Charles Angry About Bad Grammar and Punctuation in the U.K.

I have a new ally in the royal family. Read about it here.

The Importance of Spelling Things Correctly When You Are an Ignorant Racist

Apparently, some guy in Florida put up an anti-Obama sign in his yard, and it's offending a lot of people.


There are a lot of things I could say about this sign, but for the purposes of this blog, let's just look at the spelling. Obama is a type of fabric?!? Wow. That might make me think twice about voting for him.

Thanks to my friend Stephanie for sending me a link to this frightening news story.

Punctuation Vandalization

Several people sent me this story about two members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) getting arrested for vandalizing a sign at the Grand Canyon. They have been banned from entering any national parks for a year and have to pay a $3000 fine. Yikes! Let this be a lesson to you, dear readers. If you see a punctuation error, take a photo of it for Apostrophe Catastrophes, but don't try to fix it unless it's on a dry-erase board or a cake.

But speaking of errors, doesn't the article's headline, "Men banned from national parks after vandalism," kind of make it sound as if no men are allowed in national parks anymore?

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme an Apostrophe After Midnight

The people at IKEA are clearly too busy listening to ABBA to bother with correct punctuation.


Thanks to Carrie and Rich for sending me that photo.

Speaking of ABBA, did you know that "Dancing Queen" is John McCain's favorite song? Read his top 10 (and Obama's) here.

And, continuing the Swedish theme, I bought these meatballs for a party I threw a few weeks ago:


Were they really trying their best?

Update: I also sent this photo to the hilarious Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks. See what Bethany has to say about it here.

Paris Hilton Smarter than She Seems and Other Surprises

Everyone is getting political these days. From So You Think You Can Dance to Paris Hilton, political statements are everywhere you look. Never one to be trendy, Apostrophe Catastrophes has decided that it's time to endorse something completely nonpartisan.

We are hereby officially endorsing The Gratitude Campaign. It's a movement to encourage people to thank uniformed servicepeople by using an ASL sign that means "thank you from the bottom of my heart." Watch the video on their web site to learn how to do it correctly. It would be a catastrophe if you accidentally signed, "Would you like to see my breasts?" instead.

And speaking of catastrophes, when I was reading up on The Gratitude Campaign, I found an article about it from Seattle's NBC affiliate that uses its where it should use it's.


King 5, you need to go to punctuation boot camp.

Goldklank Sent to the Clink

News stories about drunken tirades are always entertaining. But that's not why my friend Ethan sent me a link to an article from the Boston Globe about the general manager of WHDH Channel 7 getting arrested for going all Naomi Campbell on police at Logan Airport. Yes, he knew I'd laugh about Randi Goldklank (yes, really) threatening officers and then propositioning them seconds later, but his main reason for e-mailing me the article was that it contains a misused apostrophe. The Boston Globe quotes a police report that uses you're where it should use your. Here's the quote:

"I'm a bigshot in Boston and I'll have you're [expletive] jobs," Goldklank told the troopers, according to the report.

No "[sic]"! Ethan works at an alternative newspaper, and he and his fellow writers and editors were up in arms about this. And I don't blame them.

Update: Globe editors have corrected this error on their Web site, but here's a screenshot of the original version. Click on this image to enlarge it, and check out the third paragraph.



Update Part 2 (June 13, 2008): Goldklank has resigned from Channel 7.

Temptation[']s Is a Part of Life

In 1991, Corina sang, "Temptation is a part of life / It doesn't matter if it's wrong or right." Clearly, the owners of this shop in Downtown Crossing took Corina's advice to heart. They don't care if their punctuation is wrong or right.



We've got unnecessary quotation marks on the awning and an errant apostrophe in the neon sign. If the name on the awning also contained an apostrophe, one could argue that this take-away was named after someone named Temptation. Um... I don't think so.

As you may have guessed from my use of the word take-away in the previous paragraph, I'm a bit of an Anglophile. A couple of my friends sent me a link to this hilarious news story about punctuation from England. Enjoy!