White Van Number 1

White vans are an inexhaustible source of grammatical and linguistic unpleasantness. Scarcely a day goes by (especially if I travel anywhere by road) when I don't spot some terrible crime against the English language being driven around, bold as brass and without a care in the world. Therefore, this post forms the first in what I suspect may become a regular feature here - I'll even create a label specially. White vans. I love them.

The photo below was taken in the car park of the cinema in Derby, immediately after I had snapped the previous two beauties. I thought my supply of fury was used up for the day, but no - imagine my rage joy when I found this, parked just by our car:

Competetive. COMPETETIVE. I ask you. How much effort would that have taken to check and correct? Do signwriters not read what they are writing? If they do read it, do they care, or have any pride in their work? Evidently not.

I drove out of the cinema car park that day somewhere between spluttering fury and unseemly glee, the latter because one of my children also noticed this error and pointed it out. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proudly spreading the joy rage to the next generation. You're welcome.

Insider dealings

Following on from the last post's worrisome pluralisation issue, the Showcase cinema at Foresters Park delivered again once we got inside the building. On the wall there was a poster advertising the cinema's 'Insider' club, giving certain benefits if you sign away your life, your bank details and your first-born son.*

There are many things here - sense/meaning issues, hyphenation problems, formatting errors - but mainly there's a truly ugly use of the phrase money can't buy as an adjective. I have never seen this before, but it ranks alongside the use of leverage as a verb and makes me want to gouge out my eyes. AT THE VERY LEAST it should be hyphenated, but really, it shouldn't be allowed to happen at all. Ever again.

Members only should also be hyphenated, and there's a cheeky little fontsize irregularity in the bottom line (not strictly a language issue, but it's sloppy). Also, what does upfront film news even mean? I could go on, but I think my point is made.

By the way, I don't know why the admission price seems to be blanked out. I don't recall that it was blanked on the poster, so maybe it's an artefact of my phone's camera. However, to be honest I wasn't looking at that particular line of text.

I don't think I'll be joining the Insiders club.

*This may be an exaggeration.

Responsibility for damage to grammar

On Sunday we took a trip to the Showcase cinema at Foresters Park in Derby. This is itself a bit of a punctuation grey area - was there more than one forester, in which case it should be Foresters'? Or was there only one, in which case Forester's? Or - final option - was the park named after a Mr Foresters, in which case well done Derby City Council? (This is my internal narrative. This sort of thing goes on in my head ALL THE TIME.)

Anyway - the cinema and environs proved to be a veritable goldmine of dodgy grammar and punctuation. This first one was on the wall outside the building before we even got into the foyer.

Now, last time I checked, the management used in this context is a singular noun, referring to a group of people as a unit. Therefore, the wording on the sign should be The management does not accept responsibility yada yada. If they'd said the managers instead, their version would have been correct. BUT THEY DIDN'T.

Since I'm here, I'd also take issue with their use of whilst. Although it's technically correct, it's an archaism which should probably be allowed to die a quiet and dignified death along with amidst, amongst and unbeknownst. However, I'll let them off that one. Just this once.

By the way, in case anyone's wondering, we saw Avengers Assemble, and it was very silly and utterly splendid. There you go - who needs IMDb?

Two by two? Not even one apostrophe, evidently

The second in my occasional (and highly cathartic) series of instances of GBH against the English language also comes from Derby - in fact, it's almost next-door to poor apostrophe-less Harry from the previous post. This time the culprit is a pub. Tom, my partner in crime and life as well as the unlucky witness of most of my punctuation-related outbursts, spotted and photographed this one.

When I was a child at infant school we used to sing a song which went "Who built the ark? Noah, Noah! Who built the ark? Brother Noah built the ark!"

Well, he may have built it, but apparently he doesn't own it. It should read Noah's Ark - no possessive apostrophe in sight. Maybe it got washed away in the flood.

Bad luck, Noah.

Harry aPostrophe and the Chamber of Amusements

After nearly driving off the road in a rage today when I spotted a heinous rogue apostrophe in a sign outside a BMW garage (BMW! I ask you. You'd think they could afford an editor, wouldn't you?), the idea for this blog was born. I'll be pointing out and posting errors in written English wherever I find them - and believe me, as a professional editor I find them ALL THE TIME. Every unchallenged errant apostrophe or occurrence of 'complimentary' instead of 'complementary' causes a small part of my brain to curl up and die, so I'm going to post them here in an effort to get the ranting out of my system.

There are other websites doing a similar thing, and all power to them, because the more of us there are the better. So I'm not going to let that get in the way of a good idea. By way of a kick-off, here's a photo of an amusement arcade in Derby, UK.

Pity poor Harry. Although he evidently has the highest paying slots in town, he clearly doesn't make enough money to be able to afford a decent proofreader.