Saturday, January 17, 2015

We Do Not Except Spelling Errors

I'm going to tearfully dedicate this blog to my father because he whipped perfect grammar and proper spelling into my life with the zeal of an Iditarod top three finisher.

You're getting all mushy, Ian.

He also instilled a sense of 'punnery' which knows no bounds. Dad was forever correcting my grammar and my friend's grammar, but me and Robbie Allaby didn't mind.

That's 'Robbie and I don't mind'.

That's okay by I. Me don't mind one bit if you feel the same way as Robbie.

My father had two jobs, as you can see. One was from 9-5, Monday to Friday. The other was full-time. One of the lasting side-effects of my father's pursuit for my own grammatical enlightenment was that I feel almost tortured when I hear bad grammar being spoken, or when I see spelling errors. I make them myself, but I strive not to condemn the language of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Bill Varty (ranked alphabetically, and not by literary greatness).

Yesterday I filled my car with cheap gas (89 cents per litre) at one our our local gas stations. Being a sizable metropolitan area, we have more than one petrol provisioning place. We have two. As I was gassing up I noticed the sign 'WE DO NOT EXCEPT FLEET CARDS'. I had seen it before but this time I had a camera in my pocket. That's when I'm at my most menacing. Click.

I except that no one is perfect and mistakes will be made, accept I do have a problem that no one has corrected this sign. It's been like this for over a year! Sometimes I'll write a blog and post it. Afterwards I read it on-line (dirty truth: I'm one of the five people who read the blog) and I'll find a mistake. I always correct it immediately, usually after punching myself in the nuts a few times. I never say 'oh, those dummies will never notice'. When you've got Bill Varty and Peter T. reading your blog, it damn well better be perfect.

Note: now I'm all paranoid that all future blogs will be put under the microscope.

Yea, me too. That's just how it's going to be, I guess. We might just as well except it.




2 comments:

  1. From time to time, I have noted an error but I must say they are few and far between. In fact, Bill has done such a good job, I am always quite surprised to see any typos or errors! Definitely not the Gleaner!

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  2. The Gleaner is in a league of its own!

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