Not Quite Mary Poppins

From a Craigslist ad written by a prospective nanny:

Exp'd, Loving, Conscious [sic]  Nanny Available

Unfortunately, we're only in the market for an unconscious nanny.

Thanks to Kate R. for the find. And good luck with the nanny search.

There Is No U in Flowers

But there are two of them in "bouquets."

The spelling teacher probably needs a dozen incentive tulips (which are different from apology daisies and attempted-seduction roses).

Thanks to Matt K. for the photo.

Oh, Red (Pen) State...

You know the expression "so wrong it's right?"

Yeah, well, that doesn't apply here. All of these errors still add up to a big, fat yikes, and as Sara J. of Mobile, Alabama puts it, "This does not help southern Alabama shed its backwoods image."

Cue the banjos, y'all. It's been that sort of week.

It's "know," not "no." It's "you're," not "your." And it should be "supposed to," not "suppose to." A little punctuation wouldn't hurt, either. All that said, the onion rings look really good.

Don't Drink and Dress

Look, we'd drink margaritas every day if we could. They're delicious! So tangy and salty!

But, just as we love our liver, we would never use the apostrophe to make a plural, nor would we spell everyday as one word, unless we were saying something to the effect of "Margarita is ordinary."

Thanks to Alan H. for the photo.

This Makes Us Hear Banjo Music

The price is right. But we do sort of wonder what he charges for the "open."*

* CONSCIENCE: Is that thinly veiled sex joke taking it a bit too far?

PERSONAL DEMONS: What are you talking about? Look, nipples!

CONSCIENCE: You should probably step away from the keyboard.

PERSONAL DEMONS: You shore got a purty mouth.

Thanks to Meredith for the photo.

New Books from Grammar Girl

It's not widely known that Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, is actually an android. How else could she keep up with her inhuman podcast, media appearances, and publishing schedule? SPOGG is in awe of all of the above, including the technology that has given us such a lifelike robot. Rumor has it that she even giggles when you poke her just so in the ribs. Adorable!

We are pleased to recommend two of her most recent titles: Grammar Girl Presents the Ultimate Writing Guide for Students and Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again.

The student guide is fantastic--printed in orange and black and chock full of cartoons, so it feels anything but tedious.

The advice is written clearly and simply enough that a student as young as 10 or so could benefit. But it's also a book that will help anyone who wants to brush up on grammar and style basics. If you're one of those people who feels insecure about your writing, do check this one out. Henry Holt is the publisher, and the list price is $19.99.


101 Misused Words is an extremely handy guide that pairs words often mistaken for one another, and offers you tips for remembering which to use and why. If you don't know whether to use "stationary" or "stationery," (and we're talking to you, office supply clerk), you'll soon learn. 

The book will be useful to anyone who writes regularly for publication. We're not just talking journalists here, although we often see misused words from Grammar Girl's list in newspapers. Rather, we're talking about the people who write menus and advertisements. The people who post notices on bulletin boards. The people who send us spam. The list is long. It probably includes you. Lord knows we're on it and have made some of these errors ourselves, because we, unfortunately, are mere flesh and blood.

101 Misused Words is a mere $5.99, from St. Martin's Griffin.

The Unkindest Cut

The story is gruesome, but the headline gets the location wrong. She was accused in court; the alleged crime happened in her bedroom. The whole thing? Tragic.

Thanks to Beth for the submission.

That Vs. Who: Why It Matters

We are lifting this out of the comments because it makes such an important point so elegantly: 

I teach college English, and it is becoming more and more difficult for me to find students not using "that" as the default indicative pronoun when referring to people or groups of people in both speech and writing. The simple example I hammer into their questing noggins every semester is this:

People = Who/whom
Things (anything not human) = That (SPOGG: or which)

The rationale I give is also simple, yet I think quite profound:

Our society and culture depersonalize humanity -- individuals or groups of individuals -- too much as it is. Let us not contribute to that depersonalization any more, as it may ultimately depersonalize us all.

~ Prof. Peter R Jacoby
San Diego Mesa College

I am adorable.

We remember learning this lesson ourselves somewhere back in the Dark Ages. Thank you, Doug Thiel, for using the hammer on our writing when we were young and malleable.

A related issue arises with animals. We think any animal with a name is a "who."

So, "My cat Fluffy, who eats rats for breakfast, has surprisingly pleasant breath."

And then this: "The dolphin, which swam alongside the ship, gave the wrong directions to Portugal." 

'Gulity' Until Presumed Ignorant?

We get all the outrage around the Casey Anthony verdict. But we think this lady should have calmed down and taken a couple of deep breaths before she wrote this sign. Then, she might have spelled "guilty" correctly and gone with the plural "jurors." We don't think there's any way she could have resisted the exclamation points, though. They are her swords of justice.


Thanks to Matt K. in Ohio for the photo.

Misfortune Cookie

OK, so this didn't come from a fortune cookie, even if it looks like it. 

Instead, it's a sign Alex F. found inside a bathroom at a park.
 
The toilet had but one handle, which would've matched the "it will malfunction" bit of the sentence so much better.

Then again, maybe rough treatment of the handle causes the toilet to malfunction.

This is the problem with pronouns. They need to match the antecedent (the noun that comes first). If a sentence (or toilet fortune) is missing its antecedent, confusion and possibly bathroom flooding can result.

In any case, all of this makes us wonder about the people who clobber public toilet handles. The less contact with these, the better. But maybe that's just us.