Punk-tuation

Good morning, party people and non-party people. Welcome yet again to another week here at UOPTA. No, that doesn't stand for, "Unripened Oranges Predictably Taste Acidic," but that is a truism I dare not question. (Thanks to my favorite brother for providing that UOPTA - it's one of my favorites to date, but mainly because you can spell Peter TWICE with the letters in it. If you'd like to send in your own, please do to ptklein@gmail.com.) Instead, mis amiguitos, this UOPTA is a place in which I write my thoughts and stories. Sounds simple enough, right? Then let's get into an actual themed version of a post today.

I'm re-reading the very entertaining, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss right now. If you're not familiar with it, the book is a humorous case for the importance of punctuation and why accuracy is paramount. In it, she also gives many great examples of poorly written items. I see them myself all the frickin' time, but it takes a real whopper (or doozy, if you prefer) for me to write it down or take a picture with my cell phone. I've seen some recently that have prompted me to those extremes though.

First off, my lovely wife and I traveled up north for our friend Dusty and The Mills' wedding. The Mills grew up in a tiny town, and while I was up there, I learned that the entire county has only three traffic lights. (I originally typed "country" instead of "county," and I'm pretty sure someone would've called bullshit on that.) But small town schmall town, I always say. Grammar and punctuation is not limited to those in metropolitan areas. (Neither is poor grammar and punctuation, as we'll come to see.) So there is no excuse for an ice cream stand to have a printed and laminated sign that read, "We now have peanut's on our Sunday's." If you're scoring at home, that's three errors in seven words (an impressive ratio!), but I guess if one never learns how to use apostrophes or the difference between a dessert and a frickin' day of the week, that's par for the course. Bravo, ice cream stand, bra-vo.

Next up, I got a haircut a little while ago, and parked in my usual space. Typically, I walk past the three or four old men sitting outside of the bakery next door and then sit and wait for the barber to arrive. (I take the first appointment of the morning and beat him there every time. It's kinda my thing.) This last time, however, there were no old men holding coffee cups and complaining about the state of the world today. In fact, the entire bakery looked closed. I walked up to the front door and saw this sign on the door:

In case my needing-to-get-a-haircut reflection is blocking out the important first sentence, it reads, "This has is closed." Once again, this was a printed sign at a place of business...that apparently was devoid of proofreaders. I guess they were deciding on whether to say that the store "is closed" or "has closed," and in all the commotion forgot the all-important noun. I wish their Beverly Hills store more luck. (Oh yeah, and nice job capitalizing the state abbreviation.)

Near my office, there is a Coffee Bean that I used to frequent...frequently. (I like the verb "to frequent." It's convenient.) Now I only go once in a while, since I can make tea or coffee at my office in a less expensive and quicker fashion. In any case, I was at the register about a month ago when I saw a printed sign in a plastic holder. It was obvious that they cared enough to place it where everyone can see the sign, but they neglected to care enough to refrain from bastardizing the English language. To wit:

I can understand when someone writes something technically incorrect that sounds good in his or her head because it's more conversational in nature. But I just can't imagine, "Parking validation are only good for 20 minute additional cost will be charge after 20 minute Thank you" sounding good in anyone's head. My only guess is that some supervisor there is not a native English speaker, and everyone else was too afraid to correct him or her. I obviously loved it and wanted to take it home with me electronically. It was tricky though. After trying to think of a few scenarios in which I would rightfully have my phone out and pointed that direction, I gave up on being subtle and held it out in front of me to snap the pic. I may have even giggled; it was worth it.

The final one really gets my goat because of the number of people who must have looked at it before it reached my eyes. I was in Babies R Us (which deserves its own entry with an f'd up name like that), and I saw something that made me say out loud, "Oh come on!" Ladies and gentlemen, I present:


I kept waiting for the rest of the sentence. "My first photo's...of a puppy dog." "My first photo's...certainly going to be a memorable one." "My first photo's...subjects have their eyes closed." Nope, that was it. Keep in mind, for this item to be in front of me, it took a company to have the idea to create it, a designer to make the image/text, an executive of some kind to approve it, a buyer at the store level to place an order for the albums, and many more people along the way. No one saw a problem with this? In short: "Babies are us like photo's."

Ok, this isn't related to failed punctuation, but I rarely put pictures in the middle of my posts, so I might as well keep this one full of them. Yesterday, I got to work at my normal time, turned on the 23 light switches in the office, and put my stuff down on the file cabinet behind my desk. My eye caught something on the window, and so I looked in a little closer:


If you can't tell, that's a snail on the window. So what, right? It had rained the two days before, and they come out then. What's the big deal? Well, my office is on the third floor of the building (out of three). I can't help but wonder how long it took that little guy to get so precariously perched on the window pane. Did he start on the roof and try working his way down (as his direction would suggest)? I have no idea, but after taking the picture, I got down to work and didn't look over there again for an hour. By that time, the snail was no longer in sight. Either snails are faster than I'm giving them credit for, or their bodies are a little less sticky than necessary for those conditions.

And with that, let's leave a slimy trail on down to the Car Watch.

I saw this license plate earlier this week: "TP DNSR." My first thought was, "Toilet paper dispenser," even though I knew immediately that was wrong. "Oh, 'dancer' it's trying to say," I thought. Naturally, I tried picturing a toilet paper dancer. Then I thought, "Moron, it's probably supposed to be 'top dancer' or...no, 'tap dancer.' What's wrong with me?" I can't explain why it took me so long to get there, but I think it's safe to say that if a tap dancer instead made someone think about toilet paper, then the license plate probably doesn't work well enough.

My favorite brother sent me an email that said the following: "SENOR EL - Mr. The? Don't get it." I sure think of "Mr. The" with that too, Kev, so I'm right there with you. I like it, even though I don't get it. Maybe I'm just jealous since I've always thought it would be cool if my middle initial of T stood for "the." Peter The Klein has a nice ring to it.

And lastly, my homey Rockabye sent me a plate that he was pretty sure would incur the wrath of Klein. It read, "PO8IC." This one's difficult, because it speaks to two different ways I approach things. On one hand, it's frickin' stupid since the word isn't "po-ate-ic." As I've clearly stated, I dislike when numbers are used in a way that doesn't serve the same purpose as the way they sound. That said, it's unbelievably fitting to allow poetic license on a license that's trying to say "poetic." If the driver was indeed trying to create a "poetic" license, how can I fault him or her for that? I don't think I can.

Alrighty folks, that's it for me. Thanks for joining me again this week, and I'll do more of the same next Friday. In the meantime, there are some things we'll pass between now and then. According to my calendar, I should wish a Happy National Boss Day today to all you bosses out there. So to Bruce Springsteen, George Steinbrenner, Mr. Hogg, and my lovely wife, enjoy your special day. Happy half-birthday on Sunday to my friend Lindsey, and another happy half-birthday on Thursday to my favorite sister-in-law, Ilyse. Have a happy and healthy weekend and week, friends. Shaloha, and go Dodgers!