Let's Get Something Straight
We know! Let's buy or sell an apostrophe together! The side of your car looks like it could really use one."Lets" without the apostrophe means "permits" (among other things)."Let's" is a contraction of "let us," which is what the slogan intends.Thanks to Asa D. for

More Tales from the Casting Couch
SPOGG's Hollywood actress friend has sent us more real errors from casting calls, along with her biting repartee:Seeking: ametaur decorators.Is that someone who outfits a centaur's cousin?Wardrobe: Glases. High hills.The hills are alive with the sound of glazing...[SPOGG suspects the hills they desire are at least a C-cup.]Wardrobe: Two peace baiting suit.What, a floppy hat and a fishing pole? [SPOGG: And love for one's fellow man, natch.]"Excellent scene for someone looking to build there real."...so the foreman points to the empty lot and says, "Build there. Re

Let Us Give Thanks...For Copy Editors
We fully admit we are jealous we did not get to attend this swank White House party. This is why we got a good chuckle out of the New York Times blog post this morning making fun of the editing on the menu:The White House pulled out all the stops in preparation for President Obama’s first state dinner on Tuesday night, hiring a new florist, selecting a renowned guest chef and even inviting a number of high-profile musicians to perform.But one person the White House apparently neglected to hire was a spell checker.The special dinner menu — a lavish mélange of Indian and American favorites as well as several excellent wines — was rife wit

We're Thinking He Missed Some Punctuation
We've watched this clip a couple of times now and do not believe this Dana person is taking the day off because he was murdered and set ablaze while celebrating his birthday.Rather, we think Dana is taking the day off, and the subject of an entirely separate news report had the worst birthday ever. We can't see the teleprompter, but we bet there's a missing bit of punctuation--or even paragraph break--that would have made this a bit clearer. In any event, yikes!Thanks to Peter W. for the video.http://spogg.org Things That Make Us [Sic], now available in bookstores.

Apparently, There's Something Worse Than Bad Grammar and Punctuation
This comes from the Seattle P-I:The nominees for Literary Review's 2009 Bad Sex in Fiction Awards were announced last Friday evening.The awards were established by the editors to "gently dissuade authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels." They are annually awarded to the author who produces the worst, most laughable and/or jarring description of a sexual encounter in a modern novel.At first, we thought we'd hit the jackpot: Ungrammatical sex scenes! Yes! (And yes, and yes!) Apparently, though, this is not the case. We d