Um, what?

Jun. 4th, 2004 11:11 am
denny: (Uncommon Sense)
[personal profile] denny
Yesterday I dragged my carcass around Tesco. After the exciting checkout process, I was sitting in one of their weird-shaped uncomfortable metal chairs and waiting for the screaming pain in my ankle to subside when I noticed a poster. Said poster is stuck up at 10 foot intervals all the way down the wall of the supermarket...
Did you know.1

You can get a joint clubcard for you and your partner.2 with all the information for both cards sent to one address. So now you wont3 miss out on any of the amazing offers instore.4

I've paraphrased, as I don't have a camera phone :) but the four points where I've added footnotes are painfully embedded in my memory. Bear in mind this is a professionally produced poster, presumably printed in quantities in the thousands and now liberally strewn around Tesco stores all across the country.

1. It's a question. Where is the question mark? Titles are not exempt from question marks. Especially when they've actually ended it with a full stop, rather than no punctuation at all.

2. That would be the place for a comma, not a full stop. As there was no capital letter on the next word, I can only assume someone almost got this one right, but then got distracted by a shiny thing outside of their window.

3. Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. The apostrophe is missing. Not even in a vaguely complicated situation involving a possessive 's. I suppose this could have passed a spell-checker, as 'wont' is a word... but not one that has any meaning in common with "won't". Almost the opposite in fact.

4. I'm willing to be talked out of this one, but is 'instore' a real word? Surely it's 'in store' or 'in-store'? (U: just looked this up and apparently 'instore' is an obselete word meaning 'to contain', so this is definitely an error too.)

Anyway, that's at least three errors, maybe four, two of which are particularly amazing - especially for a professionally produced piece of promotional material. Even the MS Word grammar checker would have picked most of these up.

Maybe I could get a job as a proof-reader for Tesco, as the job market so far continues to favour me with many interesting application processes and interviews, but no actual jobs.

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 04:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] valkyriekaren.livejournal.com
I would go for "an instore offer", but "offers available in store".

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 04:07 am (UTC)
adjectivegail: (Default)
From: [personal profile] adjectivegail
If I had to use the phrase "instore offer", I would have hyphenated it: "in-store offer".

Speaking of which, _are_ there rules about when words are/can be hyphenated and when they aren't/can't be?

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 05:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dennyd.livejournal.com
That is a fine icon :)

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 05:08 am (UTC)
adjectivegail: (Default)
From: [personal profile] adjectivegail
Why, thankee; the lovely [livejournal.com profile] rahalia_cat has provided me with several Fine Icons :)

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 06:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] quantumlotus.livejournal.com
American English rules (which are terrible) state that the words IN and STORE when used together must be hyphenated. Not sure how it is across the ocean.

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 01:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lzz.livejournal.com
Remind me to lend you Eats, Shoots and Leaves if you haven't already read it. It made me feel thoroughly vindicated!

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 01:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dennyd.livejournal.com
What is it, a collection of such nastiness?

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 02:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lzz.livejournal.com
It is a book about the (mis-)use of punctuation, including several funny examples, e.g. "Dicks in tray".
"Sticklers unite" is her rallying cry. "You have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion - and arguably you didn't have much of that to begin with."

(no subject)

Date: 2004-06-04 06:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] katishna.livejournal.com
I love you, UK version of me. Let's be grammar nazis together.

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