Grammar Giggles – Menu Troubles

I recently hit the jackpot on menu errors when I found three in the same menu. First, it appears they only offer you one brussel sprout and then they spell that wrong. It should be Brussels (named after the city of Brussels) sprout.

Creamed Brussel Sprout with Bacon

Then, they off a “blackend” shrimp risotto, even though they spelled it “blackened” in the description.

Blackend Shrimp Risotto should be blackened

And finally, they offered the rainbow trout with “oyser” mushrooms. It should be “oyster” mushrooms.

Oyser mushroom should be oyster mushroom

It is never my intent to make fun of any establishment–just to use these errors to teach you something–so I have marked out the name of the restaurant. And regardless of the errors, the food was delicious!

Grammar Giggle – Oh What A Difference Punctuation Makes

A reader sent this picture to me from her local Wendy’s. Just looking at this sign, apparently, they have already filled all their positions because they WERE hiring, but now they’re not. If they are currently looking, it should be WE’RE (contraction for “we are”) hiring. Obviously, Wendy’s knows how to use apostrophes since it is part of their name.

Grammar Giggle – Real Begginers

This was a category in some education sessions I recently attended. The one thing going for it was that they were consistent. It was spelled “Begginer” throughout all the material. While I loved the categories so I knew if something would be too far above my head for me to learn anything, I also love when someone proofreads the material going out to attendees.

Error in spelling Beginner

Meet Me In Little Rock!

I’m going to be in Little Rock, Arkansas, September 23-28 for the NALS conference. If you are a Proof That blog reader and are already in the Little Rock area, or if you are also attending the NALS conference, let me know if you are interested in meeting up with other Proof That blog readers. I would love to meet my biggest supporters IRL! If you will be in Little Rock during that time, let me know what day works for you and we’ll try to find a good time. I will be busy with seminars and conference events but would love to set aside some time to meet you. Email [email protected] and we’ll try to set something up!

Confusing Words Of The Week

It’s time for “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, use the Ask PTB tab on the website or send an email to [email protected] and they may appear here soon!

This week’s words are:

  • therefor – for that thing
    • He insisted on buying the Chopard watch and paid an exorbitant price therefor.
  • therefore – consequently
    • He insisted on buying the Chopard watch; therefore, he didn’t have enough money to go on vacation.

Memory tips:

  • thereFOR – FOR that thing
  • thereforE – consEquEntly

Grammar Giggle – Jalepeno Please!

This part of a menu from a local restaurant caught my eye because first, I love jalapenos so I notice those right away and, second, it is spelled differently in two places in the same paragraph. Worse yet, the second one is spelled so correctly it even includes the tilde.

Example of the word "jalapeno" spelled two different ways

Replay Thursday

It’s time for a review of recent blog posts just in case you’ve missed them. We call this Replay Thursday. Here are posts from Proof That proofreading blog and 60 Is The New 60 blog during the past week.