Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Cato]

Wow! 

Satire or seriousness?  Since our society has become a satire, it is ever more difficult to say! 

Anyway, the poster with Bob Newhart and company has a partially incorrect caption in Latin: "And this is my other brother Darryl" should be "...et hic est meus alius frater Darryl."

Across the Ohio border at Toledo in the highly questionable state of Michigan is a fruit and vegetable store run by a family of Italian descent: as far as I know the place actually is a "legitimate business."    Anyway, the store  is notorious for hand-made and badly spelled signs.

Recently during a visit there, we were met with a vegetable called Brockli  and a large display of "Ornges," both of which are understandable because the two brothers pronounce the produce with precisely those spellings.

Also on sale: "Asean Pears." 

[North Star]

Also on sale: "Asean Pears." 

Straight from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I suppose.

[Jo498]

Probably someone should adopt "Sancta simplicitas" as motto. Or "ite domus, Romanos" or  "difficile, satyram non scribere"

[Karl Henning]

Stop the presses! Typo of the Year!

[Ken B]

Stop the presses! Typo of the Year!

Can you post improvements in a "grumble" thread?

[jochanaan]

...Also on sale: "Asean Pears." 

Once in the Seoul airport (that's in Korea ), I ate for lunch an "American Dog Sausage."
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That's a hot dog, in case anyone wondered.

[Karl Henning]

Oh, dear . . . .

[jochanaan]

*urrrrrrrrrrrrrp* Indeed.

[Ken B]

Once in the Seoul airport ...  I ate for lunch an "American Dog Sausage."
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That's a hot dog, in case anyone wondered.

For non-Americans let me explain. Dogs taste terrible cold, so we only eat them hot.

[Phrygian]

Cato, I do miss your hugely funny missives demonstrating the tortured vernacular of the colourful characters in 'Kafkaesque' America!!  I'm still in Europe and in the last 24 hours have had some success with consistent internet reception at a hotel!  My husband has fallen ill so I've been reading GMG today and have just noticed your latest foray into the fruit and vegetable business   Many of your emails have been hilarious and I do wish you'd post some of these on the "Grammar Grumble" page for all the world to see.

I met a German artist on the train last week - a man of 60, with an absolutely superb sense of humour and he regaled me for the over-4 hour rail journey with all sorts of anecdotes/observations about Germany and his world travels.  This fellow is an abstract artist and also has a PhD in Pre-History;  he showed me pictures of some of his work which is regularly exhibited all over the world.  When we arrived at our destination his friends were there to greet him and we parted company by warmly shaking hands and he gave me his card.  I said to one of his friends, "we've been talking the whole way" and one said with a huge, knowing smile, "of course"!!!  A warm and wonderfully engaging man who had a total appreciation for the ridiculous in life as well as an acutely developed sense of how language can be abused.  He would be a great participant for the "Grammar Grumble"!!  When I suggested things to him - in response to some of his comments - he crinkled up his face and eyes and enthusiastically said, "Oh, I love it"!!

Some of the things my artist friend had to say about Germans and their bureaucracy ("you know, in Germany it's illegal to be dead for more than 25 years"!!) told me that they are capable of great self-parody and have an excellent sense of humour.  The same thing happened on the ship in Norway when a huge German man from Nuremburg made friends with us and his wife had to tell him to "shoosh" when he frequently roared with laughter.  We had trouble because the ship broke a propeller and we were stranded in Harstadt - deeply northern Norway - for 2 days and all we had to amuse us was a heavy snow-storm and each other.

Cato;  the man who did the much-too-frequent announcements on the ship and my attempts to stop them encroaching into our cabin by throwing around the phone and pulling out the plugs (to no avail) would be worthy of a spot on the "Grammar Grumble", but I'm afraid they would be profane!! 

[Karl Henning]

Zis iz KAOS: ve don't shoosh hier!

[Ken B]

Zis iz KAOS: ve don't shoosh hier!

Sad to say, I recognized that instantly and with no effort.

[Karl Henning]

I've embraced my fondness for Agent 86.

[Brian]

Just read the line "This club has impacted me to eat more healthily"

This sentence has impacted me to rage!!! 

[Karl Henning]

Grammar Rage!

[Ken B]

Just read the line "This club has impacted me to eat more healthily"

This sentence has impacted me to rage!!! 

Calm down Brian. "Healthily" is an adverb, and it modifies the verb "to eat".  This is correct.  I am sorry the sentence has been so impactful upon you, but I hope this mild correction will eventuate in such a manner as to have impacted you to note adverbs more carefully. 

[Karl Henning]

Rogue comma:

Charles Dickens walked about 10 miles a day. Scientists I looked at turned out to be avid, sailors, hikers, skiers.

[jochanaan]

Rogue comma:

I have found that even the greatest writers get tripped up by rogue commas.  But in many cases, I blame the copy-editors.

[Karl Henning]

This article was rife with poor punctuation . . . .

[Cato]

Some of the things my artist friend had to say about Germans and their bureaucracy ("you know, in Germany it's illegal to be dead for more than 25 years"!!) told me that they are capable of great self-parody and have an excellent sense of humour. 

Some of the funniest stories I have read are by Patrick Sueskind in his short novel Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer (The Story of Mr. Summer) and Hans Fallada Damals Bei Uns Daheim (Back Then With Us At Home.

This article was rife with poor punctuation . . . .

That could be the epitaph for our era!   0:)