David at Gallimaufery pointed out a common mispronunciation of the word forte and that reminded me of this sign that is grammatically incorrect, so I rushed right out and snapped a photo. This is a local hair salon, celebrating ten years of hair-dos. They have dropped the word hair, so the apostrophe holds its place, right? But then again, a decade of 'dos does not look quite right either. Hmmm, anybody got any better ideas? I might have taken liberty with the spelling and said, a decade of 'doos. Yeah, that's what I would have done.
It does seem like it ought to be Friday night already.
Same thing with talking about the 50's instead of the '50s. That little apostrophe takes a lot of beatings, doesn't it?
ReplyDeletepoor li'l fella!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, given your grammatical grumblings, I bet you will like this site:
ReplyDeletehttp://crummychurchsigns.blogspot.com/
Now, Annie, I got behind on my reading last week in Kansas, and dammit if you didn't make me regret it. I read a bunch of your stuff at once and it made me love you even more. You are my kind.
ReplyDeleteQuite a conundrum you've got yourself there Annie. Can't say that I lately haven't had the same problem. In fact, I was writing just the other day and realized that I was commiting the possessive apostrophe sin in my use of 70s and 80s.
ReplyDeleteI don't think folks will understand why, but I think if I don't settle this issue in my mind I might give this little problem some sort of thought around three o'clock tomorrow morning and perhaps lose some sleep over it.
...then again, maybe not. I am convinced of one think. Folks don't alway thing before they do thigs for all the world to sea.
it ain't right.......that sign......that's just as bad as people who can't seem to capitalize the personal pronoun "I" ......that's my peeve.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I might have utilized quotation marks. I usually "do"s; but, then, I also am prone to do the 70's thing. Then, again, maybe not. I can't remember at the moment. It's more like: whatever looks and feels right at the time. So, while mis-use of "your" and "you're", "who's" and "whose"...are what jumps out at me when others so err, I try to remember my own lack of education, grit my teeth, and go on........
ReplyDeleteAt least when we speak of the 50s and 60s (or 70s and 80s) we can occasionally be correct in our use of a possessive apostrophe...we might be referring the 80's fashions or the 70's music.
ReplyDeleteI think this was just an advertising slogan that sounded better than it looked, and they were far too committed to the sound of it by the time they realized the problematic way that it looked!
Rach, thanks for the link, I had fun looking around at the signs.
It seems like we all have our grammatical pet peeves.
Later...
I don't even remember the last time I even heard anyone use hairdo. I only hear do. It's a do. Nice do. Like my do? Of course I thought it was spelled doo. But maybe that's a different word altogether.
ReplyDelete