Bloggers care about grammar—who knew? By Jennifer Wutz-Lopes You know, there are only a few things I truly loathe: agonizingly slow wi-fi connections, running out of Prozac, and the Blue Man Group. Oh, and gratuitous apostrophes and superfluous quote marks. And people who utilize the word literally when they shouldn’t, and the use of your as an incorrect contraction of you are. The list of grammar and spelling abuses that make me crabby goes on and on. Luckily, there are some kindred souls out there in the blogging world who post these abuses for the world to see; they let me save my own ranting for other things. Like those damn Blue Man Group guys. Chris Duval is the blogmaster of Apostrophe Abuse, a blog with links and visuals illustrating his biggest pet peeve—common apostrophe catastrophes, which appear to be everywhere near his home in Seattle. Inspired by a rather profane—but hilarious—piece of graffiti he saw in a phone booth in 2005, he started the blog to record all the misuses of the apostrophes (not apostrophe’s) he could find. Chris receives about twenty submissions a month, captured via cellphone and digital cameras and e-mailed in. A typical favorite of his on the blog is “Father’s Love Knives,” from a sign in front of a knife store in Texas, right around Father’s Day. My favorite blog entry is a sign from California, “Now Serving Pasta’s.” I do love pasta—multiple servings of it, as you know. Find your own favorite orthographic error at apostrophe-abuse.blogspot.com. What is up with people who hand-write things all in capital letters, except for the L? William Levin of Brooklyn says that the improper use of lowercase L’s had always bothered him, but since it’s such a specific and quirky writing flaw, he needed a proper forum to talk about it without sounding crazy. Enter the lowercase L blog (lowercasel.blogspot.com) which examines this phenomenon in full, complete with reader-submitted photos of examples of these incidents. Log on and see photographic evidence of ClAY POTS for sale in Virginia, the return of the LOBSTER ROLL to a restaurant in Massachusetts, and several YARD SAlES in New Jersey. Levin, who believes he is the first person to publicly complain about the abuse of the lowercase L on the web, is proud to note that his blog was mentioned in the New York Times, and was listed as a Blogger’s Blog of Note and Yahoo! Weblog of the Day. Bethany Keeley, a doctoral student in Athens, Georgia, started The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks in 2005, as a joke. Her blog showcases reader-submitted examples (she gets about seventy every month) of needless quote marks in ads, on signs and food wrappers, and more, along with a snappy comment or observation about the item profiled. A recent post includes a totally obnoxious sign outside a popular Philadelphia sandwich shop that reads, “This is America. When ordering, ‘speak English,’” to which Bethany responds, “If people are going to be xenophobic, they should learn to ‘write’ their native language with punctuation that ‘makes sense.’” Another post from August pictures a sign reading, “This is ‘Not’ an ‘Exit’ or the way to ‘F’ terminal’”—also from Philadelphia. Check out Bethany’s blog at quotation-marks.blogspot.com to find out how to submit your own crazy-quotation mark evidence. Have you ever laughed so hard you literally wet your pants? No? I guess that’s only me. Well, check out Literally, A Web Log (literally.barelyfitz.com) and see if you can change that. Patrick and Amber dislike misuse of the word literally so much, it gets their blood boiling (no, not literally). According to their website, literally has been so overused as a sort of vague intensifier that it is in danger of losing its literal meaning. It should be used to distinguish between a figurative and a literal meaning of a phrase. It should not be used as a synonym for actually or really. People quoted on this blog are “literally stunned,” have “literally kicked the bucket,” and have “literally given birth” (but not to a baby). Ban Comic Sans (bancomicsans.com) is not a blog per se, but I like it all the same. Dave and Holly are on a mission to save the earth from the use of the comic sans font, released by Microsoft in 1995 and which can currently be seen everywhere on restaurant menus, websites, and signage—including at my local Dollar Tree store and on more than a few billboards on the Kensington Expressway. Personally, I think comic sans should be used only for advertising a sale on cotton candy and maybe in the Family Circus comic strip. In contrast, Dave and Holly prefer to eradicate the font from earth “to ensure that future generations will be liberated from this epidemic and never suffer this scourge that is the plague of our time.” Harsh! If you’d like to join the movement, the website offers a do-it-yourself anti-comic sans propaganda kit, which allows you to download and print “ban comic sans” stickers, which can be applied wherever comic sans is used. Be sure to take a supply when bar-hopping in Allentown; I hear the people down there just love comic sans. Jennifer Wutz-Lopes considers herself quite literally “snobby” when it comes to grammar and punctuation, while spelling is another matter entirely. She lives in Lockport with her husband and son and blogs (never in comic sans) at Jen14221.com. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top