All I Want for Christmas Is Correct Punctuation

My friend Tiff, one of Apostrophe Catastrophes' best contributors, snapped this photo while she was snowboarding at Sunday River:


At least they've got 361 days to fix the sign before the Santas come again next year.

Thanks, Tiff!

Here's a Tip: Learn Some Grammar!

My friend Tiffers sent me a photo of a sign that is so atrocious that I don't know where to begin.


Tiff found this sign near the tip jar at the Candy Castle in Lexington, MA. It lists the colleges that the student employees attend or will be attending in the fall. But with all the errors in the sign, it's a wonder these kids graduated from high school let alone got admitted to top colleges! The horrors of this sign include:
- Missing apostrophes (Columbias sister school)
- Homonym errors (Boston your my home)
- Spelling mistakes (Conneticut College)

Tiff found the your/you're error the most disturbing because she went to Boston College. Looking beyond all the grammatical errors for a moment, however, I think I am most offended by the fact that the sign writer wrote "Hurricanes and mardi gras! Yee haw!" about Tulane. That's wrong on so many levels.

Tiffers is one of the best punctuation vigilantes on the Apostrophe Catastrophes team. Check out her other contributions here.

Tuesday Is and Thursday Is

My friend Tiff, a frequent contributor to Apostrophe Catastrophes, spotted these terrible signs in LA:


Three apostrophe catastrophes in one photo! And you may not be able to read the small print at the bottom of the Thursday's [sic] sign, but we've also got some unnecessary quotation marks. An early "bird" special?

Thanks, Tiff!

Fighting the Effects of Bad Journalism

In this article about the Boston Celtics, the Associated Press uses "affects" where they should use "effects." See the first sentence in this screen shot:


Thanks to my friend Tiff for alerting me to this error. You better be wearing a Celtics T-shirt in L.A. tonight, Tiffers! I hope to be dancing like Gino in the streets of Boston around midnight.

Punctuation for Decorative Purposes Only

My friend Tiffers sent another bizarre punctuation error from the City of Angels. Actually, this one is from Catalina Island:


In case you can't read it, the bottom of the sign says, "This Pictures Do Not Apply To Our Restaurant Drink's Menu / Those are for Decoration Purposes Only"

Clearly, someone drank too much tequila, a word which Tiff says was also misspelled on the restaurant's menu, before writing this sign.