Too easy, Martha. "It's" instead of "Its" is such a common mistake that it's/its almost accepted. Almost.

The one excuse for the image Grant posted I can think of is that the plaque itself is an image of a door, but not actually a door, so it's a "door". But that's stretching it and I doubt it's really what the creator meant.

And Martha, I think the it's/its mistake is getting universally accepted — but that doesn't mean is isn't still eye-scratching ignoring.

I've never heard of "shout quotes" before, but I do have a number of friends that refer to "scare quotes", used to emphasize doubt or instill uncertainty in the listener: "My 'friend' here would like to say a few words…"

Of course "it's" and "its" are different.

BTW, there was an art supply house in town with its name on a large hand-painted sign outside, "Iv'e Been Framed!" I was never sure what they thought they were saying. After a couple of years, someone fixed it.

Three men die on Christmas Eve and show up at the Pearly Gates together. St. Peter tells them, "In honor of the season, I'll let each of you into Heaven if you can show me something that proves you have the spirit of Christmas."

The first guy frantically hunts through his pockets and comes up with a cigarette lighter. He lights it and says, "It's the Christmas star!" St. Peter tells him he can go in.

The second guy hunts through his pockets, brings out his car keys and jingles them. "Jingle Bells!" he says. St. Peter says, "You can go in."

The last guy frantically hunts through his pockets and brings out a pair of women's underwear. He says, "They're Carol's!"

Thanks for the compliment, but I did violate the rule you expressed on the show about keeping exclamation points outside quotes. My view has always been that if the quoted words are a complete exclamation or question, the exclamation point or question mark belongs with them, inside the quotation marks. I'm with you on periods and commas going inside the quotes except in technical communications, e.g. computer manuals where you're putting in quotes the text string a user must type. In that instance, I think the quoted string should include only the characters to be typed on the keyboard.

I just thought of a new Zen koan: Should punctuation marks be inside or outside when you're using "air quotes"?

Dan

Enjoyed catching up on the new forum's posts — and have this cautionary example to share from my work at an aircraft company.

We proudly display in the lobby a large, framed banner showing pictures of our latest aircraft and the signatures of everyone present on the day of its first flight.

Unfortunately, the person filling in as copywriter chose to use those "shout quotes". Or are they scare quotes?

CONGRATULATIONS — C-xx "TEAM" on First Flight

My first reaction, of course, was — "Wow, that's great! The management know that we have teamwork problems!
Um, but, why did they put it on the banner?"

(And I never suspected they could express irony!)

What ever happened to underlining a word for emphasis? Or emboldening, or different type? They already used all caps (looking rediculous in one of those highly serifed fonts, with little balls even on the top of the "A"), but must have been searching for more…

(project name removed to protect the — well, me.)

——-

PS – On the very first photo in this string – The View Restaurant – I was looking for the regrettable punctionation and never made it to the fifth line with its extra apostrophe. On the second line, after puzzling through how different Pre-theatre Dinner and Dinner could be, I choked, stuck and flummaxed, struggling with the Tasting Menu, half way through Artisanal…

fourteenhours said:

After feeling the pain of each misplaced comma and twitching at the frequency of rogue quotation marks I was overcome by a serious case of the warm fuzzies. Not because I feel at peace with all of the atrocious punctuation/spelling lurking in the world, but because I now realize that of all of my fellow word nerds out there are grimacing along with me. No longer will I tremble alone before the sign declaring “Your Gonna Love Our Ice Cream!” No longer will I feel powerless when confronted with the billboard asking “Is Your Gas Bill To High?” Now, as I wince at the “Please do not let the “cat” out!” sign, I know that you are all somewhere wincing with me. Hooray for Word Nerds! You are my people!!

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This made me laugh out loud… It reads as though only the "cat" thinks it is such and the rest of us are just humoring him in this mistaken notion

Post edited 9:33PM – Jun-18-09 by johng423

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I read an anecdote about a man and woman not speaking because of a disagreement.
He sent her a note saying, “Woman without her man is an animal.�
She punctuated it and returned the note to him: “Woman! Without her, man is an animal.�

(Talk about using your own words against you!)

Re ‘elevater’… Andrew Jackson is often quoted (I am not sure of the truth of it, but still…) as saying "It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word."

But I often have to confess mea culpa: I once begged forgiveness in a letter I wrote to a friend for all the poor "speeling." Mistakes happen, and they do not bother me to much.

"Creative" punctuation, on the other hand, bothers me much more. It seems to me that whereas spelling can get screwed up as you push forward quickly with the creation of the communication to convey the idea, punctuation is part of the communication creation process itself and deserves more attention in honor of the thought. Bad punctuation is not bad spelling, it's a sin all on its own–or as some would have it–"its a sin all on it's own."

("Its" and "It's": What a great title for a book! More than ever do we miss the genius Shel Silverstein.)

From a bottle of Pilliteri's 2004 Select Late Harvest Cabernet:

It reads "Enjoy with desserts (even chocolate!), as an aperitif or simply on its' own." I've seen many mistakes involving "it's" vs. "its" throughout the years, but this must be the absolute worst mispunctuation!