Friday, June 23, 2017

Friday Fun with the English Teacher

So this morning the Human stopped at the Starbucks in the Diamond Heights Safeway on her way to work. While waiting for her latte, she found herself perusing this sign, which reads:

Please do not pour the coffee into the suger continer, 
thank you for the coorporation.
                            coopration
                            cooperation.

Now, kudos to the author for doggedly pursuing the correct spelling of that tough word, cooperation.

However, the effort involved was sadly undermined by the wrongly-spelled suger and continer, and the run-on sentence (specifically a comma splice, in which a comma serves as an ineffectual substitute for a period or semicolon).

All in all, there were four errors in a sign containing 15 words, for a grade of 73%. She will grant a 7% bump for correcting cooperation, bringing the total to 80%, but deduct 2% for not recopying the sign, and another 2% for the capricious use of random capital letters (e.g., Do), bringing the final grade to 76%, a C. 

But in her heart, that 76% really represents an F because, truly, the allowable number of mistakes in a 15-word sign is none.

16 comments:

Cathy Keisha said...

That's terrible. I'd hiss and give the person an F too. It's sad that TW couldn't find a job and someone who can't spell "suger" can. HISS!

Summer at sparklecat.com said...

Ugh! That is really embarrassing.

The Island Cats said...

Get out the red pen!

pilch92 said...

That is to funny ( I am trying to be funny spelling too wrong).

Just Ducky said...

Well, some can't spell. Mum is one of them, she says that is why God had them invent spellcheck!

Catio Tales said...

A 'C' ??? Really ??? That must be for crappola. Crapolla. Crappolla. CrapPola. Well, crap anyway.
No marks for handwriting ? Ă„iti read it as 'Please do not POUT'.

LCI said...

Admiration for your Mum's fair and balanced assessment from one who knows her well.

Megan said...

It's definitely a fail grade.

Megan
Sydney, Australia

Katie Isabella said...

Made my mommy smile!!

Kitties Blue said...

Our mom totally agrees with your mom. To her this is a definite F. Guess we all know why this person is working at Starbucks. Our mom, had she seen that sign, would have corrected it! XOCK, Lily Olivia, Mauricio, Misty May, Giulietta, angel Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth, Calista Jo and Cooper Murphy

Ivan from WMD said...

OMC, Spitty, we totally agree with your human. It must be torture for her to see such pathetic use of the language. We know this because our mom goes mental over stuff like that (and quite vocally, we might add), and she's hardly an educationally-trained English whiz like yours.

Marvelous Marv said...

Spitty Darling, My writer of a Mommy is appalled!! She would has failed that writer too. BUT Then, shes had to invent my grammar for when mes posts - on both my blog and in comments and, believe it or not, she has writed those grammar rules down!
Now mes must say, mes thinks she overuses punctuation and capital letters, but she tells mes that is how mes speaks!!!
Like, would yous believes that MES YELLS!!! And starts sentences with AND!!!!
No matter, mes is glad to sees yous laughs, must has been the dancing in your dreams with mes and Katie Isabella last night!
Many Kisses
Your Nellie Bellie

Memories of Eric and Flynn said...

That is terrible and definitely only worth an F grade.

Anonymous said...

Well deserved grade but I wonder if your human's coffee had been ICKY the grade would have been even LOWER?????????? Prolly!

meowmeowmans said...

Wow. That sign is embarrassing.

I'd like to know who pours coffee into the sugar container. Is that really a thing?

Mark's Mews (Marley, Lori, Loki, and Binq) said...

TBT says he doesn't know why semi-colons still exist; no one uses them.