It's Not Easy Being Queen

A friend recently told me she had described my pickiness on proper use of the English language to someone else by telling him: "If there were a Grammar Island, Erika would be queen."

I don't mind saying it's true.

I was always a good student in English class, and naturally, with a degree in English writing, I have a good grasp on the language. In the past few years, however, I have become somewhat obsessed. When I read something like, "I want to loose weight," or "their going to the store," I want to scream and throw things.

To be fair, I make my living as a writer and editor, so on some level it's one of those things I just can't turn off. Everybody has their talents and abilities; I'm sure that personal trainers cringe when they see people doing an exercise wrong, and fashion experts fantasize about doing a "What Not To Wear"-style ambush on anyone sporting a muffin top or a camel toe. I try not to correct individual people on their poor English unless they ask (or are my husband), but all bets are off when it comes to companies. (Which is why, on Grammar Island, every CEO would draw Hitler mustaches on pictures of me.)

A few months ago, I noticed a particularly bothersome error in a local store that is part of a major international chain. I suppose it would be bad form to mention the place by name, so let's just say the error was so upsetting that not even the store's bright blue and yellow logo and whimsical, Swedish-inspired product names could cheer me up.

I was shopping in the children's area, looking for a tunnel (or Speja, as this not-to-be-named store calls it) for agility training for Stella. (They have pet tunnels, but they're too small for dogs.) I was having trouble locating the item I wanted, though, and I couldn't find anyone to help me, so I tried my usual tactic of standing there looking confused, hoping someone would approach me. While I was waiting, I looked around the children's area a bit, but since I don't have children, I wasn't all that interested in much. I started reading the signs on the walls for entertainment.

And that's when I saw it. A big sign inviting shoppers to "Bring the kid's."

I couldn't believe it. I had seen plenty of errors on business signs before, but most of those signs were homemade, some even hand-written. But this sign here was in a huge corporate place with professional looking signage. I would have thought this company would have people to check these things before they were sent out.

It was a good thing no employees ever approached that day to ask if I needed help; they must have seen in my eyes that anyone who offered to help me would get a lecture in proper punctuation. I left the store without a tunnel but with a good first draft of an e-mail to the company. I knew that I would probably get the brush-off, maybe an auto-reply form letter thanking me for my feedback and nothing else. But I simply had to tell someone.

The truth is, most people probably wouldn't even read the sign, let alone notice an error on it. From my own observations, I believe that adding apostrophes where they don't belong is probably in the top three common mistakes people make when writing. How people got the idea that a punctuation mark was necessary to make a word plural I'll never know, but apparently, it looks right to some, including the folks at this unnamed retailer known for furniture you have to put together yourself.

So I drafted that e-mail. It was very polite and matter-of-fact; I refrained from saying anything offensive, like, "I wouldn't bring my kids to a store that displays such egregious punctuation errors on its signage." Even though I might have had that thought privately. A few weeks later, much to my surprise, I got a real response. A man in the store's graphics department (each location has one, I am told) wrote to tell me that he and his colleagues usually catch mistakes like that but missed this one, and he thanked me for pointing out the error. He never said for sure that he would change the sign, and on return trips to the store, I was always in a hurry and didn't get to check whether he had.

Today, I made a quick trip into the unnamed store to pick up a lamp to replace one that had broken (and perhaps take in a few whiffs of those cinnamon rolls whose heavenly smell permeates the whole place). I walked right by the children's section and looked for the sign in anticipation.

"Bring the kids," it said. No apostrophe.

I smiled in satisfaction. They really did care.

I may not be queen of Grammar Island yet, but if ever I am crowned, I know where everybody will buy their furniture.