While I understand that some cities are difficult to pronounce and/or to spell, Tucson is the second largest populated city in Arizona, so our Phoenix news station should certainly know how to spell it. Pronounced “two saun,” if someone has problems remembering how to spell it, you could pronounce it “tuck sun” (but only in your head please) to help spell it right.
Check out the updated article at ENCORE – The State of Capitalizing State
Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I have lots of issues that tend to attract Murphy’s Law into my life. Thankfully a very attentive NALS member brought to my attention that the last Grammar Nuggets article on capitalizing the word “state” had a glaring error. The Murphy’s Law part of that is that that article was correcting a 2014 blog post, so we are correcting it again and I’m hoping the third time is the charm. I apologize for getting the information wrong. The reference in the The State of Capitalizing “State” post to The Gregg Reference Manual should actually have been a reference to The Bluebook. This clerical error made a confusing topic even MORE confusing. Here is the correct information:
According to the Gregg Reference Manual ¶ 335:
According to The Bluebook, capitalize the word “state”:
Obviously, The Bluebook is not a grammar guide—it is a style guide for legal citation. The only grammar guide that seems to disagree with part of the Gregg Reference Manual is the Chicago Manual of Style, which says “where the government rather than the place is meant, the words state, city, and the like are usually capitalized.”
I have made and will continue to make mistakes and I will continue to learn right along with you. While I hate making errors and hate even more when others catch them, I am always happy that they are brave enough to bring it to my attention and give me the opportunity to fix it. So as I said in the original article, capitalization of the word “state” is very confusing. But hopefully we’ve made it a little clearer—and more accurate—this time.
I saw this goof in a Walgreen’s recently. This is an example of a product that has been around long enough that retailers should have no problem spelling it.
I pulled this out of my mailbox this weekend and noticed three errors before I even got back to my house. When the part of an advertisement intended to catch your eye has a glaring error, it really makes the company look bad. While they were consistent with their mistake, there was another anonymous placement of a comma.
I recently went to a painting party. I had a great time and ended up with a beautiful picture, which I’m still not convinced I actually painted. While on a break, I noticed their scrolling information about future classes on monitors throughout the facility. I saw these two errors. Even if your business is not grammar, you have people reading everything you have there and, perhaps, making judgments about your business based on that. A review of these slides should have caught the mistakes.
Once again, my news channel comes through for me in the latest Grammar Giggle. This is proof that spell check is not all that you need to have quality work. You actually need to READ what you’ve written–in context–to make sure it is correct. “Sign” and “sing” all share the same letters, but mean completely different things.
Once again in an effort to be the first to report, a local news station left out some words in this headline that are pretty important.
I saw this on a news story last week. The name of the location they are talking about is Bearizona, but that sure got butchered in this story.
I caught this on a recent dinner out during a weekend with friends. I think the comma is unnecessary–it should be a period–and the wording at the end is confusing. Taken literally, I am encouraged to ask my server to purchase a gift certificate. So I would say “Dear Server, please purchase me a gift certificate” and the server would purchase a gift certificate and give it to me for future use. Perhaps it should say “Ask your server about purchasing one.”
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