Friday, November 13, 2009

Friday Sign of the Apocalypse: Oh, North Carolina

Courtney C. sends this along from the North Carolina state fair. Though we can't read all the text, we're impressed with the two visible goofs. She scores in the spelling and punctuation categories.

If the food won't give you a heart attack, the sign will. Bon appetit!

Update: A reader wrote asking SPOGG to include an explanation of the errors. We will do so starting now. In this photo, "chili" is spelled wrong. And they should have written 'n' instead of "n."

Use apostrophes to indicate a missing letter or letters. This is how we make contractions.

Put quotation marks around a letter or a word if you're referring to it as a letter or word itself.

For example: "Buttery" is the sort of word that sounds like what it means; "pulchritude" is not.

But you wouldn't say "Try our 'buttery' biscuits" unless you were using fake butter, which would be all kinds of wrong.

Quotation marks are widely used for emphasis, of course, but SPOGG does not care for this. It can get "annoying." And it can look "silly." See the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks for more.

3 comments:

k-bro said...

"Hmm. I know there are two I's in chili...where oh where shall I put them?"

Jessie Sams said...

I do believe that in some states "chlii" is a distinct delicacy in its own rights. It will bring the heart attack twice as fast as plain ol' chili.

Martha Brockenbrough said...

My husband just let me know that his parents are traveling in "Chili." D'oh!