Somebody may have been Shanghaied
A story off the Reuters wire that demanded my attention:
The Great Typo Hunt describes a nationwide mission by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson, both 30, to rid America of signs that add an extra “n” to “dining”, or insist that “shipping” is spelled with one “p”.
Deck, a magazine editor, and Herson, a bookseller, drove across the country in the spring of 2008 armed with sharpies, pens and whiteout, correcting spelling, removing surplus apostrophes and untangling subject-verb disagreement on signs outside stores, gas stations, parks and public buildings.
Having completed their book, they’re presumably going to count coup on the Reuters staffers who failed to notice that Sharpie® is a registered trademark of Sanford — unless, of course, our intrepid syntactical troops had fallen for fakes:
Counterfeit Sharpies appear on the market. Products labeled “Shamark”, “Shankie”, “Shanghai”, “Shapley”, “Shoupie”, “Scarple”, “Staunion”, “Skerple”, “Sherple”, and “Shounion” in a font similar to that of the Sharpie, are sometimes sold at dollar stores and flea markets.
The question of “whiteout,” and whether it pertains to Sanford’s Liquid Paper, BIC’s Wite-Out, or something else entirely, is left as an exercise for the English student.
(Tip of the sunshade to Lisa Paul.)
Lisa Paul »
24 August 2010 · 4:24 pm
What I loved about the story is that the only time the guys were threatened with violence was over the Canadian border. So our Northern Brothers may not be a peaceable as once presumed. Especially when confronted with grammar police.
Then there was the judge who sentenced the duo NOT to talk about grammar mistakes for six months. WTF? Isn’t grammar correction covered somewhere in the Constitution?
CGHill »
24 August 2010 · 4:40 pm
If grammar correction were barred from the Internet, total bandwidth would drop by 10 percent overnight.