Okay, so they’re talking about snow (!) here in the Northeast, so it’s a little hard for me to imagine when it’ll be warm enough to sport one of these awesome word nerd t-shirts, but maybe it’s something to look forward to, right?
There’s this one:
Or this one:
H/t to Emily and MysticalYeti. Of course, if neither of these shirts appeal to you, you can always visit the Arrant Pedantry t-shirt store.
This little tidbit was spotted on BuzzFeed.
Okay, here’s the deal. When you mean “a comprehensive and fundamental law, doctrine, or assumption,” “a primary source,” or “an underlying faculty or endowment” (M-W), then the word you want is principle. When you mean “a person who has controlling authority or is in a leading position” (M-W), such as the person who has the power to put you in detention until the day you graduate from high school, then the word you want is principal. In this case, although Allen Gregory may very well love his principles, what they meant to show was that Allen Gregory loves his principal.
In principle, the proofreader of this article might want to make checking for spelling of principal importance.
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Bonus MRP moment: In addition to this delicious typo, BuzzFeed also brings us “14 Punctuation Marks That You Never Knew Existed.” Impress your friends and scare your enemies with your new knowledge of guillemets, sheffer strokes, and asterisms.
Loving bad tattoos never goes out of style, does it? Here’s one I spotted recently (it was part of a treasure trove of bad ink):
Love concurs all? When you want to express agreement, you concur (M-W). When you want to say overcome or gain mastery of something, you conquer (M-W). And when you want to say that love will triumph above everything, you say love conquers all. And that something on which I think we can all concur.
Yes, the story of what happened to bartender Victoria Liss of Seattle is shameful. Here it is, in a nutshell: a nasty customer walked away without leaving a tip. But what he did leave for her was even worse: a shameful typo.
Prince Charming wrote, P.S. You could stand to loose a few pounds. Well, here’s a tip for you, buddy: you could stand to lose a few typos.
Ah, fall. It’s a beautiful time of year around these here parts. And this past weekend, we happened to have some particularly beautiful fall days. Perfect for apple picking. And you know what apple picking season brings: apple cider (refreshingly cold or piping hot, with or without cinnamon), apple cider donuts, apple pie, apple crisp, and of course, caramel apples.
Or, if you’re Honeypot Hill Orchards in Stow, Mass., carmel apples:
The good news? Every sign in the place directed hungry pickers to carmel apples. So what they lacked in spelling, they made up for in consistency.
Mighty Red Pen 