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A Zorro for our times

Kate calls herself the Grammar Vandal and goes around with a pad of sticky commas/apostrophes to put on local signs that need them. She reports how this recently got her into a spot of trouble with Tufts police, who didn't take kindly to her (or the tall guy who agreed to help her) adding an apostrophe to a sign reading "Professors Row:"

... Cop (yelling): "What are you doing?"

Me: "Just fixing the sign."

Cop: "What are you doing to it?!"

Me: "Officer, this is incorrect grammar. Oh, and I don't even know this guy! I pulled him off the street!" ...

Via J's Scratchpad.


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Comments

Wow. I bet the story of Presidents Day (no apostrophe, before OR after the s) gives her fits.

I mean, really. I get as annoyed as anyone else over misuse of its and it's, but she's trying to tell us that "Teachers College" is wrong to call itself that. How arrogantly fundamentalist.

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This is a punctuation error, if it is an error at all.

It should be a collective possessive, marked by an apostrophe. That isn't a grammatical error.

Here's a good example of a very public gaff. We recently received a notice for an event that was sent out by the Mayor's Office. It read: YOUR INVITED! This is the second year running for that particular error, and came after numerous posters to a city-wide list called it out as sloppy at best.

Well, I guess that was the kind of schools people got when the school committee firmly believed that people should send their kids to private schools if they wanted them to have a reasonable education.

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Comma Police
Arrest this sign
The punctuation
Is hardly benign
So we must fix that apostrophe!

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Who are they kidding? Drunken Debauchery Row is more like it. At least, that's how it was 20+ years ago when I was an undergrad there.

That said, there is no apostrophe in the name of the road, just like it's spelled on the sign. Way to "fix" a non-existent problem.

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I discovered last week that this Grammar Vandal was the one who placed the comma sticker on the Reebok "RUN EASY BOSTON" sign outside South Station. I applaud her efforts and boo The Man who thwarts her quest not to make the world perfect, but to make it grammatically correct!

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Now all we need is someone to go around removing all those extra apostrophes. *grumble*

(Not logging in so I can try the math. HA)

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Like the Hyde Park pizza place that used to advertise "free" delivery.

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The quarrels are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

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