Comments on: Robin Jeff and Little Ben running through the forest

By: danielo

danielo — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:13:28 +0000

“Deface” means to mar or spoil the appearance of something. I don’t think it applies to what these two did.

By: Margot

Margot — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:55:06 +0000

Let’s hope M.E.J. Colter’s 1930s architecture was superior to her grammar.

When public signs are mispunctuated, the general public eventually can’t differentiate between what’s correct and what isn’t. This is especially true for newspaper writers, who should know better but are woefully incorrect.

I say more power to Jeff and Ben. But they missed a comma.

By: GIACOMO

GIACOMO — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:41:09 +0000

The dumbest part about this whole flap over correcting punctuation is that before Strunck and White codified our modern, more uniform system, there were in fact different standards and conventions in use. Same goes for the spellings of different words, ‘immense’ for instance. These jerkoffs who are so in love with their grammatical wizardry are in fact buffoons with no sense of the history of lexicography. If you go down the road of correcting arcane spellings and grammatical conventions, you should be aware of whether or not they’re actually incorrect rather than simply dated. These are children playing with a remote controlled speedboat in the harbor of a classic battleship.

By: audubon

audubon — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:10:12 +0000

i think their mission is admirable. they should have just used a pencil.

By: Monica

Monica — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:31:16 +0000

Sadly, I often feel my life would be better if I carried a Sharpie around with me, but I dunno…fixing signs that are the property of the federal government? Even I wouldn’t go that far.

Interesting to note that all but two of these posts contain at least one error.

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:58:55 +0000

Yeah. Don’t let these guys near the Declaration of Independence.

By: mighty red pen

mighty red pen — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:08:54 +0000

@Ridger, the punctuation wildness? I love it! Your comment also reminds me of one of the things that interested me about the story that I forgot to mention, which is that from what I’ve been reading, whether the “perceived typos” would have been considered typos at the time the sign was made is somewhat debatable.

By: The Ridger

The Ridger — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:43:41 +0000

They’re vandals. They got what they earned.

Plus, English is far more hardy than their manifesto would have us believe. If it survived the punctuation wildness of the 17-18th centuries, it’ll survive the spelling errors of the 20-21st.

By: David

David — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:52:51 +0000

The sign, evidently, was something other than a xerographic copy. I know in some of the parks I have visited, they have elaborately carved and painted signs in some places that date back to the days when the park rangers did such things to keep from dying of boredom during the winter. If they defaced one of those, they were destroying folk art of a sort.

Frankly, it’s obnoxious. I support the advancement of precision and clarity in language. However, my right to be a pedant ends where the other guy’s right to the quite enjoyment of his property in ignorance begins.

By: Steph

Steph — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:42:28 +0000

I have to agree–I’ve corrected a office flier or hastily-scrawled vending machine “Its out of order” sign in my time, but seriously, defacing a sign in a National Park? Um, I think perhaps someone’s (sometwo’s?) transitioned from “Grammar* Fan” to “Grammar Stalker.”

*and punctuation, and mechanics, and syntax, etc., etc.