Evidently, basic grammar know-how is not necessary in order to develop applications for Facebook. Maybe my students are correct when they say they don't "need this stuff." **sigh** The word "your" shows, or is supposed to show, possession or ownership. The word "you're" means "you are." If a writer can substitute "you are" whenever there arises a your/you're question, then "you're" is correct. In this case, the writer should have chosen "you're."
I took the Real Age Quiz, and supposedly my real age is 23. Does that mean that I am immature? Don't answer that.

Facebook World Vision

This is a portion of a recent Facebook screen I encountered. The picture is adorable. The spacing if off a bit, but the error regarding the pronoun agreement is the one with which I take issue. "A child," which is the antecedent, is singular. "They" is plural. It is incorrect to use a singular antecedent and plural pronoun together. One should be changed. If the writer wanted to keep "a child," then he should use he/she, he, or she. As I have written in previous posts, I understand why writers use they, their, or them in place of singular pronouns such as she, he , her , or him. The plural pronouns are not gender-specific, are less offensive, and are not as cumbersome as writing the his/her or him/her combinations.

KFC offers free clobber

Thanks to Carrie for this one. Obviously, this should be "free cobbler." With this reading though, I guess they might punch you if you order one of these meals.

Webkinz mistake

"Every pet" is singular and "their" is plural. They must agree. I think the simplest way to correct this would be to change "their" to "its" rather than "his/her" since the pet is not actually a person. (My daughter would be offended by this since she takes her Webkinz pets very seriously.) I think the rule with animals is that if the animal is named, you should use "his/her," but if there is no name for the animal, "its" is appropriate. I think that stuffed animals should always be referred to as "its."

Health Care Ad

In the fourth paragraph of this advertisement, Respiratory Therapist is only supposed to be plural, but the writer uses an apostrophe in an attempt to make a plural. I think this is probably because apostrophes were used with RN and LPN. In the paragraph following, using periods with C.N.A. is inconsistent since periods are not used with the acronyms RN and LPN.

Red Ribbon

When my daughter came home with this red ribbon for Red Ribbon Week, I chuckled because it is a funeral home that is encouraging the students to be healthy. Somehow I find that ironic or weird or something. When I showed it to a teen and asked him if he thought anything was weird about this ribbon, he thought it was funny because you "roll" a joint. He didn't know that Roller is a funeral home.

Mighty Movers on the Farm book

I do not consider myself a farm girl by any means, but having grown up in a farming community and having a granddad who farmed, I never saw this vehicle used as faming equipment. Not to say that famer's don't have dirt bikes, but I believe that those tires would make farm work a bit difficult. This is not a grammatical mistake. This was one of the few pages of the book without and error in spelling or grammar.

This children's book was printed in China. "Tyre" is incorrect. Obviously, it should be "tire."

Tires is once again misspelled. I can tell the author of this book wasn't from these here parts since he calls the four-wheeler a buggy.

I don't think that JCPenney is selling SPING dresses. I believe the store is selling SPRING dresses. I am not sure, but I think that Infant and Toddler should agree. INFANTS and TODDLERS or INFANT and TODDLER would work.

Meet/Meat the Burger King

I did not take this picture myself. A friend sent it to me, and I think that it had been sent in a mass email.
This Burger King employee makes several mistakes with this sign. The sign should read, "Sorry, we ARE closed. We ARE out of MEAT." I guess the burger was not king on this day.
A subsequent email identified this picture as being from a Little Rock location of Burger King.

Thanks to another one of my students for these snippets of student work. These are hilarious. I can't decide whether the students knew they didn't know the answers so decided to be creative or if these students thought these answers were correct. I hope that these were exercises in creativity.

Imagine my delight when I found this mistake in an advertisement in Parents magazine. The headline uses the singular antecedent student and the plural pronoun their. I understand why it would be politically correct to use the pronoun their because his/her is obnoxious and using just his or just her would be selectively choosing one gender or another. This could have been written with the plural antecedent students.
When I showed this to some of my classes, several students caught this mistake. Woo-hoo!

Another sign from the same student...I think that "giftshop" should be 2 words, and "Bills" should be "Bill's."

I student of mine e-mailed this one to me. I think these mistakes are intentional, and the grammar nerd in me gets a kick out of this. :)