College Prep Coach??

This person may have lots of great test prep tips, but I doubt his/her credibility after reading only one post. I marked problem areas. I may have missed a few. Its should be it's. There should be a comma after magic because this is a compound sentence. A comma should be after easy because this word ends an introductory dependent clause. Another comma should be placed after articles because the introductory prepositional phrases need to be separated from the rest of the sentence. Another comma should be placed after say because say ends an introductory dependent clause. Quit should be quite. Whic should be which. Fell should be feel. Another issue I see in this post in the switch between the 3rd person use of "students" mixed with the 2nd person use of "you." Either one would be correct, but both should not be used. After posting the picture, I can't see the red marks very well, so if I have left out an explanation, I will try to add that later. Thanks, Robin, for this one.

Textbook Mistake

A student found this one in an FCSI textbook. Notice that the sentence beginning, "Take care of your skin" has the word hair twice in the list. Great job, student!

Mechine/Machine

Thanks to Robin for this one. Mechine should be spelled machine. I wonder what prompted the making of this sign. What were people putting in the elevator machine room? ...flammable liquids, a change of clothes, the best broom... This one was at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

Frys/fries

Fries, not frys. I checked on hush puppie. This spelling seems to be used online and in recipes, but the more common spelling appears to be hush puppy in the singular. It is also sometimes spelled as one word and sometimes as two words.

Sale/Sell

Dad found this one at Wal-Mart, too. I assume that the same employee is responsible for this sign as for the one below. I love that someone wrote a correction above the word sale. Dad, did you do it?

Dad found this one at Wal-Mart in Searcy, Arkansas. First of all, why not just put up a sign that says, "Dehumidifiers"? That would have eliminated the need to choose between sale and sell. They sell dehumidifiers. They do not sale dehumidifiers. Thanks, Dad!

Women's/Womens

This is a Kohl's bathroom door. Rare indeed is this absence of an apostrophe. Women is plural, so adding an S makes it double plural, if there is such a thing. WOMEN or WOMEN'S would be correct, but WOMENS is not correct.

Coach Ad

While waiting for a really long time in a doctor's office, I came across this gem. This picture only shows a few of these parallel structures. The antecedent of the pronoun they is coach. They is plural. Coach is singular. The proper way to write this is, "When a basketball coach can average more than 20 wins per season, you'd know he is a good coach." Sometimes for political correctness he/she is used. In this case, he is correct because the story is about a male coach.
This was in Saline County, Arkansas' Lifestyle magazine.

Ice Tea Lid's

No apostrophe necessary since the writer only intends to create a plural. This was at a McDonald's.

Who/Whom

My scanner met a terrible end a few months ago, and I haven't purchased another. I used my webcam to capture these images. My apologies for the poor image quality. These advertisements each have a mistake in the use of who where whom should have been used. Who is a subject pronoun. Whom is an object pronoun. When working with questions, it is often easier to re-order the words into a declarative sentence. For example, "Who will you get your flu shot for?" could be re-written, "You will get your flu shot for who." In the rewriting, I think it is easier to see that who is working as an object of the preposition FOR; therefore, the writer should have used the objective form, which is WHOM. The first ad should read, "For whom will you get your flu shot?" In the second advertisement, "Who will you meet at Tech?" should be re-worded to say, "You will meet who at Tech." In this sentence, who is working as a direct object; therefore the objective pronoun whom is needed.

A trick that I sometimes teach my students is to substitute another subject/object pronoun pair in the place of who/whom. For example, they/them. For most people, "You will get your flu shot for they/them" is a simple choice. Most people would choose them, the object pronoun; therefore, since whom is also an object pronoun, whom is the correct choice.**Oddly, in the previous sentence, whom is being used as a subject.

I know that most people don't care one way or another about the who/whom dilemma. The argument usually revolves around the idea that meaning is the most important part of communication, and if the reader understands either who or whom in a given sentence, it doesn't matter which word is used. Indeed, that is a slippery slope.

Honestly, I believe that in a few generations whom will have gone the way of thee and thou.

**I typed this quickly and while tired and sick, so correct my grammar here. It is only fair. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Cliche vs. Glitch

I received this reply from the company that makes MoxieGirlz. I laughed out loud when I read this because I immediately tried to decide which cliche was causing trouble in the company's system. Which cliche was it? Keep your fingers crossed, God willin' and the creek don't rise, shoot for the moon, wish upon a star, all's well that end's well, cash in your chips, when push comes to shove, or ants in his pants. My only glimmer of hope is that cliche is a technology term and there really can be a cliche in a computer system. I suspect that the writer intended to say that there was a glitch in the system.

Funny Combo

Sarah sent this one, too. This sign advertises quite a variety of items. :)

B.Jaxx Website Mistake

I don't know whether or not you can see the misspelled word in the left column. In the fourth line from the bottom in the left column, the word advanecd should be advanced. The purses on this site look cute, though.

Unnecessary Quotation Marks

I hope this is large enough to see. My friend Sarah sent this to me via Facebook. Notice the unnecessary quotation marks. I guess the author of this sign intended the quotation marks to add emphasis. There is no logical reason to use quotation marks. Underlining or using bold letters would work.