Spot the Error(s) #6

15 comments:

Stephen Parrish said...

What, I'm first? Yippee!

Open should be opens.

Then should be than.

Author should be fired.

Charles Gramlich said...

Uhm, what language is this? The words look vaguely English but the grammar is certainly not.

Jessica Burkhart said...

That's just wrong! :)

Danette Haworth said...

Ha! Stephen, love your last line!

Charles,
What language indeed!

Jessica,
So wrong is right!

Kimbra Kasch said...

But the purple makes it all okay - right?...

(notice only three ellipsis and no capitals, like Washington, D.C., in the middle of a sentence.)

Anonymous said...

OUCH!

But... LOL!

Carrie Harris said...

Error number one was letting this guy design the sign in the first place! :)

Sheri Perl-Oshins said...

Where to begin... I agree with Carrie, let's start with hiring the writer of the sign...

Rena Jones said...

***shudder***

Are Walgreens open 24 hours?

Christina Farley said...

Halarious!

Mary Witzl said...

The writer's mistake is sadly common: 'open' is both a verb and an adjective -- "The store opens at nine" -- "He came through an open window." And I don't think I've ever had a student who didn't struggle with the lack of parallel structure in 'open' and 'closed.' In Japan, most stores kindly provide English translations on their store signs, and they ALWAYS read 'opened' and 'closed.' In fact, I've had students question why native English speakers fail to put an 'ed' on 'open'...

steve on the slow train said...

I suspect the author was thinking of an understood is--"Pharmacy [is] open earlier..." But in conjunction with the "and closes later," the sentence is awkward at best. I can't think of an excuse for the then/than error, except that a lot of people seem to think they're homophones. (That's excuse, not justification.)

There was an error--maybe intentional--in your previous post. I know because I made the same error a few years ago when I applied for a copy editor job. "Fiery" is the correct spelling.

P.S. I found your blog through Charles Gramlich. Your book sounds wonderful. Sometimes you can learn more from "children's" books than from those written for adults.

steve on the slow train said...

One more thing--nobody's mentioned the "for your convenience" tacked on without any punctuation to separate it from Walgreens.

Danette Haworth said...

Aack! Steve! Thank you for fiery!

Kelly Polark said...

That's why I shop at Walgreens! :0)