The urge to edit can go too far
I know I'm not the only person to have a chuckle at the takeaway
menus offering "painapple" for your pizza topping or "mate
samosa" for your starter. I also know I can't be the only one who
cringes when seeing a huge,
expensive-looking shop sign for "Furnature" which is
spelled correctly on the other side of the building, as if the
sign writers figured they'd go for as many variations as
possible in the hope that one would be right. But I do have to
admit that I may have taken my urge to correct spellings a little
too far when on holiday.
I blame the bingo dabber. It was red, you see, and we all know that red is the colour of editorial corrections (and of blood. Coincidence?) When I saw the flyer on the table, all illustrated and colourful, I just had to act. It was for a Pajama Party.
Pajama. I checked; no, I hadn't inadvertently gone to the US instead of Burnham-on-Sea. I was still firmly in pyjama country (and weather, it was rather brisk) and I had a red pen. I slashed a great swathe of dabber ink over the offending word (twice, they'd used it!) then scanned the rest of the text only to find Duvet. With a capital D. After I'd stopped hyperventilating, I covered their duvet with crimson before making my displeasure known at the use of "out" instead of "our."
I left the amended flyer on the table for the entertainment staff to find. I did feel a tiny bit guilty; after all, the poor sods did have to walk around all day dressed as a pink elephant or a manky-looking tiger, but that's still no excuse for shoddy spelling.
I wonder if my bingo dabber is big enough to handle the "Furnature Warehouse" tomorrow?
I blame the bingo dabber. It was red, you see, and we all know that red is the colour of editorial corrections (and of blood. Coincidence?) When I saw the flyer on the table, all illustrated and colourful, I just had to act. It was for a Pajama Party.
Pajama. I checked; no, I hadn't inadvertently gone to the US instead of Burnham-on-Sea. I was still firmly in pyjama country (and weather, it was rather brisk) and I had a red pen. I slashed a great swathe of dabber ink over the offending word (twice, they'd used it!) then scanned the rest of the text only to find Duvet. With a capital D. After I'd stopped hyperventilating, I covered their duvet with crimson before making my displeasure known at the use of "out" instead of "our."
I left the amended flyer on the table for the entertainment staff to find. I did feel a tiny bit guilty; after all, the poor sods did have to walk around all day dressed as a pink elephant or a manky-looking tiger, but that's still no excuse for shoddy spelling.
I wonder if my bingo dabber is big enough to handle the "Furnature Warehouse" tomorrow?
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I do think I need to pull back on this desire though. It's a little worrying when your hand twitches to get hold of a red pen and place corrections all over someone else's document :-). But it's nice to know I'm not alone ^^.
And at last year's toddler hallowe'en party I took part in a quiz but couldn't hand in my paper because I had started correcting not only the spelling mistakes but also the factual mistakes. My niece works there and we were regulars at the time, so I chickened out and put the form in my bag. But I had really got worked up about it. I mean why bother thinking up a quiz and then not checking the facts?
As a teacher, I get the best ones. I go through there, their and they're roughly once a week due to their inability to differentiate between the two; they yawn and complain and reel it off easily enough, so why can't they do it in their writing? As the stamp proclaims:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/Mistresselysia/Grammar_Stamp_by_Omnywrench.jpg
What does annoy me, though, is our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), set up by a colleague of mine. Since we're both English teachers (and she's the one with the English Language degree, not me!), I shouldn't have to log on and see misused commas, apostrophes and the eternal bane of 'ie' / ei'. It's not good for my health.
Click here to sign up now.