Hey. iPhone Application Developers. Spell check your work so you don’t look like a 2-bit operation.
I know that spelling and grammar are not everyone’s forte, and that most people actually don’t give a damn. However, there are a lot of people – like me – who will, subconsciously or otherwise, judge you by your words. I’m not necessarily talking about random quick communication such as text messages or email between friends, but rather things that are put out there for the general public to see: advertising, clothing, instructions, etc.
Maybe I take my love of the English language to extremes, but I visibly cringe when I see something with a glaring mistake in it. It’s a thousand times worse when that mistake is on a consumer product – how many people looked at this before it was released, and no one noticed the error? And you expect people to PAY for it? Are you insane?
One of the worst examples I’ve seen is probably this kid’s t-shirt for sale at Old Navy:
i hate you so hard
Not only are you selling this horrible thing with a terrible grammatical error; you’re selling it to CHILDREN. I wanted to burn the entire table of t-shirts, such was my outrage. I did take one to the checkout line to tell the vastly uninterested teenager behind the counter, but he just shrugged at the stupid fat girl angry over an apostrophe (or as they are commonly known, “sky commas”). Apparently, having a sense of pride and decorum over your ability to communicate at a level befitting your age and education background is, like, sooooo lame.
I’ve been going on a downloading rampage lately, grabbing any iPhone application that catches my eye. I generally ignore the free ones, because I am willing to pay money for a decent game or tool. That being said, for my $.99 I expect SOME level of professionalism – if you’re charging people money, the least you can do is run your product by someone who passed 5th grade English. I know $.99 isn’t a lot of money, but it’s the principle of it all – if I find a cringe-worthy mistake, I’m going to think less of you and your company for it.
Here’s a shot from a game called “I Dig It”. It’s currently the number 1 paid app in iTunes Canada. It’s a pretty neat little game; one that definitely looks good and kept me entertained .. until this happened:
grr
Really? You use the same word correctly later in the same sentence; what changed? I still play the game, but I think about the abused “your” every time I do and I turn my nose up at InMotion Software because of it.
This next example is worse. It’s a little app called Sleuth, and features a series of short mystery stories that the reader then has to solve, based on what you’ve read. It’s a neat idea, but the execution leaves a little to be desired:
help me mcgiver
brother can you spare a sky comma
I find this the worst offender of the two, because this app is nothing but words – it’s a reading game.
Maybe I just hold the rest of the world to too high a standard. I know mistakes happen – I’ve made more than a few myself, some with drastic results – but I still make a conscious effort to come across literate, and I’m not trying to sell you something. Why should I give money to someone who doesn’t care what kind of impression they make? Ignorance is not always bliss.
It’s not just me, is it?
*sigh*
delicious juice dot com 
No, it’s really not just you.
When I see people advertising “we have more calendar’s…” I think to myself “you have more calendar’s what?”
The whole confusion around the words to/too, your/you’re and its/it’s (to name a few) drive me simply batty.
When did proper spelling, punctuation and grammar become obsolete?
It’s definitely not just you. I cringe the same way. I agree texts, emails, and informal conversations don’t deserve the same level of scrutiny, but certainly text that’s going to represent you in a professional arena ought to be double-checked. It seems worse than ever these days. I don’t know if I’m just noticing it more or if people’s increased use of social and mobile media is bleeding laziness into everyone’s written English.
“McGiver” made me laugh, though.
I got the postcard today! *Flandersesque scream* Thanks!
I secretly want to walk around with a red marker in my bag for this purpose. It makes me itchy.
Also, I got a postcard from you today! It was exciting. I’ve been reading your website for….a really long time (like, seriously…I think you and Ed had just gotten married when I started reading), so it was TOTALLY like celebrity mail. :)
I also made a first-time purchase at a LUSH store a few weeks back because I remembered reading about it on your blog. So yeah…thanks for the good reads and the bath product-enabling!
Also, I use Frisky Dingo’s You’re “Doom” postcard as a lesson in my English class. I teach college level English, but most of my students are functionally illiterate. It’s terrifying. It’s sad. It’s creeping into society! That Old Navy shirt is inexcusable. You should write the corporate office.
Hello! I’ve been lurking around for a while, but this splendid rant inspired my first comment.
Complaining to staff gets you nowhere. One might expect that complaining to management would be more constructive, but no. I once saw a t-shirt that featured the Union Jack, but with the word “ENGLAND” written across it. Well, as an English lass and a pedant, I felt duty-bound to go and explain the difference between England and the United Kingdom to the sales clerk, who didn’t care. So I emailed head office, and didn’t get a single word in reply. I was really just trying to protect them from angry Scots.
I loved the part in Eats, Shoots and Leaves where the author enquires about the militant wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society.
No, it’s not just you. I get incredibly irritated when I see basic grammatical errors on business signs, advertisements, and PRODUCTS, as you mentioned. (That t-shirt would have upset me for the rest of the day if I’d stumbled across it myself.) Misused apostrophes and absent serial commas make me all twitchy.
Well, we have the main character’s name should we ever make a MacGyver-themed porn film. If it hasn’t been made already; I wouldn’t be surprised.
What upsets me more than “sky commas” and incorrect spelling and grammar is that most people don’t seem to notice or care about these mistakes. It’s almost as if *I* were the one with the problem, not the dude who can’t spell. Though I can understand forgetting apostrophes, I don’t get how they can magically appear where they’re not needed.
On the other hand, I do heart Engrish. My life would not be as rich without it.
Grammar and spelling don’t seem to mean anything to my grandkids and I hate that but I’ve noticed that they tend to give all media about the same credibility. The barely legible text message from one of their peers is no more or less credible than the newspaper, TV or whatever book they happen to be reading. I feel like that’s a good thing. Of course many of them seem to have no interest in any sort of book and that, to me, is a bad thing but does it mean they aren’t reading? I don’t think so. I feel sad that they may never discover any of the wonderful books that filled the lonely hours of my childhood but I don’t doubt they’ll find their own stories to remember and cherish. The web brings a great deal more coal into that mountain which is knowledge but I cannot doubt that there are also many bright diamonds buried among the chunks of coal. Far more than were available to me in the small world where I grew up. Life is change. Change is good. I say that so often that it seems to have become a mantra. Ah well, call it a ‘praying mantra’ because I really want it to be true.
Hey, you left out my biggest pet peeve – the dreaded double quotes around the words hard drive. Unless you’re actually quoting someone else, single quotes please.