Punctuation Pedant
posted in Blog, Examples, Fujifilm, General, Ireland, John Richards, News, Punctuation, S5200, education, mistakes, photo, picture, sign |
A few days ago this story surfaced, of a badly punctuated sign at the side of the road, slow news day maybe but even still this guy seemed to think it was his right to criticise a sign-writer in another country and he even went so far as to say “I assume it was produced by a professional sign-writer who didn’t know his job.” The first thing I would say about that statement is “assumtions are the mother of all f*** up’s” 
The second thing I would say is that what gives John Richards the right to criticise this mans work? does he not have the right to seek emplyment? Does he not have the right to make a mistake?
Thirdly, if his work is all so bad people will not hire this guy again. That is how a market economy works. Except now this guy will probobally not get any more sign-writing work because of all the negative publicity that you called down on him John Richards. Sleep well, while he and his family find another source of income to replace the one you robbed him of.
Fourthly, John Richards you are a Hypocrite. The following text is taken from the main page of your website…
“We are aware of the way the English language is evolving during use, and do not intend any direct criticism of those who have made the mistakes above.”
Your criticism was fairly direct John, shame on you.
I have in the past made fun of my own spelling and grammer and been irritated by the spelling and grammar Nazi that I am going to marry in the less than a year. To be fair, she does this when beside me or when my mistakes are noticed and I’m within earshot. Unlike John Richards who was so distressed by the lack of an apostophe that he used the worlds press to lash out internationally at an individual. Would his anger and frustration not have been better served by slating the education system that so obviously failed this man? probobally, but then “Malcontent frustrated with his lot in life lashes out at the Irish education system” wouldn’t have gotten quite so many column inches.
As someone who doesn’t have the best grammar (or spelling) in the world, I am regularly the butt of jokes amongst friends and to be fair I have to take some responsibility for my own actions, however when your teacher cannot explain the difference between how to use there and their, simply telling you to always use there (one of many examples from my education) because they can’t be bothered to do there job correctly I won’t take all the blame.
I think your goal is admirable John, I think your methods are self serving and you should really get down from your soap box for a look around the real world, there are far more inhumane things happening in this world today than bad punctuation.
Actually, just thinking about it and after seing this on your website “Due to the receipt of huge amounts of ’spam’ and virus emails, the address previously used for the submission of examples has been withdrawn. We will continue to update this site from time to time but we can no longer receive pictures due to our email address being clogged by unsolicited mail.” maybe you should stay on your soap box and respond to all spam mail correcting there grammar, who knows it might irritate and frustrate the spammers enough so they’ll stop, now that is something that could truly help mankind. 
As part of my research I did come across this rather interesting page about the origins of punctuation, maybe mine ain’t that bad after all, just a little old fashioned or ahead of it’s time.
Oh and just before I sign off this post, no I didn’t spellcheck this, I have re read and corrected as many punctuation and spelling mistakes as I could see. So any that remain are not meant as a pun or some form of irony, they are the result of the Irish education systems failure to educate me.
Anywho, enough of the ranting, I think I’ll leave the last word on this to Twenty Major, the guy is wittier than I, so hopefully will cheer the few that have read this entire post.
