Spelling Beer Names Is Tricky

I try to let local businesses off the hook. They're working hard, they're doing good work (patronizing local businesses keeps two thirds of the money you spend within the community, as opposed to funneling it off elsewhere), and they've got a lot on their mind.

Taken at the Herkimer, Mpls., MN

I don't let major corporations off the hook. When they make errors, I take no little delight in highlighting these and parading them before a public audience, whether here on my sad little blog or on my favorite message board (which shall go unnamed). I feel that they should be better than a struggling mom-and-pop, in terms of professionalism. It would fill me with dread to think that a juggernaut of ineptitude and "that's good enough, I guess" could emerge to stake a national claim and go after the checkbooks of hard-working, decent citizens such as you and me.

Is that a double-standard? I don't think so.

At the same time, this was quite a slip-up. I like the Herkimer because they make great beer right there on the premises. I like them even more now that I myself am into homebrewing. I would love to sit in and watch while their guy goes about his business, checking the vats, mixing the grains (though I suspect much of it is automated). Yet someone wrote out that chalkboard sign by hand, someone had to have sounded out the letters while they wrote it, and someone had to have stepped back to admire their handiwork. Not to mention, other workers must have looked at this sign, as well as countless customers from all walks of life. Hipsters tend to settle in at our local bars like a plague of tasteless, undereducated locusts, but the Herkimer enjoys a broad spectrum of clientele, I think.

Someone should have noticed this by now, is what I'm saying.

Math is Really Our Strong Suit

You can't tell me the world doesn't need copyeditors.

This was a street-mounted marquee set up at the beginning of the school year, on the sidewalk by Hennepin Avenue. It was set up to direct students to their new campus, to one particularly important location for students. But I want to ask the school: if the room is that important, nay, if you want to inspire faith in the new students paying good money to your institution for a solid education, is this how you want to represent yourself?

Then again, if everyone's on the same erroneous sheet of music, most people aren't going to notice the error. They will look at the sign, understand what it's trying to express, and there is no practical breakdown in communication. That's the Living Language argument: "it's only wrong for now."

Behold the Lowly Vandal

This was an interesting trend in graffiti: lacking self-publishing resources, steal a bunch of post office labels for a canvas. Grab a stack of these from the courtesy desk, write out your tag or slogan, then go around down and slap them to any available surface. Very handy if you're too scared to stand in place long enough to write out your tag.

Wish I could remember whose quote it was: "The blank wall is the idiot's canvas."

In no sense do I support or admire vandalism. I choose to see little distinction between a street artist and a crude tagger: they are each forms of fascism, in which one person decides his values supersede those of others--in this case, those of the property owner. I can admire a street artist's work, but I will always wish he chose a legitimate venue by which to succeed, rather than expressing himself at the expense of someone else's rights.

That said, it's not impossible to admire the techniques of one's enemy. Just as we can be impressed by the persistence of the cockroach or the robustness of the latest season's flu virus, so can I admire the resourcefulness of a vandal. If you really, really don't want to spend any money, where would you go to look for free stickers? And if by radical chance you happen to know someone with a legitimate job, you could ask him to swipe a couple markers for your craft. All that's left is for you to refine your misguided and misapplied calligraphy, then disseminate your non-message throughout town for everyone to see and not understand. Awesome: way to fail to communicate anything of value. You have achieved nothing useful and only worsened your living environment.

Plus, you stole supplies from the post office. That's pretty sad, stealing something that's free from people who legitimately need it. Yeah, vandals are somewhere just above pond scum in the grand scale, somewhere below jackals and carp.

Advertising Errors

Okay, people don't think they need editors, but editors know that everyone needs them, that their need is ever-present and constant. Imagine a movement of people trying to insist we no longer needed undertakers or janitors, that things are fine as they are and the problems will take care of themselves.

This sign was posted in Pier 1, during a clearance sale. I pointed it out to the clerks, none of whom could detect any error. When I explained what was wrong, each one claimed someone else was in charge of that and it was out of their hands to correct.

But few people would have sympathy for me. If anything, I would be gently chided for having a large stick up my ass. People who can't see the problems don't think there are any problems, but this is absolutely not true. Walking around downtown--walking around anywhere--I, or any other editor or English major, could point out half a dozen spelling or grammatical errors in public display.

What's the grievous offense? What's the grand crime if someone spells something wrong on a sign? It looks unprofessional, for one. It compromises the consumer's trust in that vendor, it makes the business look ignorant and sloppy. Then again, if the public can't identify the errors either, then this is only an offense to the educated, to "those in the know." Customers who don't know any better can safely shop at businesses that don't know any better, and then we get scenarios where an obese mom responds with shock to her obese kids, who she's been feeding at McDonalds twice a day for years, claiming she had no idea that food was bad for a person. Claiming ignorance.

That's something I wouldn't scream too loudly. I wouldn't exactly advertise that on the street, but that's just me. Clearly.