Atrocious spelling in OKC

[Kerry]

I hear what you are saying Travellers and I agree. Just because it is a wide spread problem doesn’t mean we all have to participate.

[FritterGirl]

Let's see. La Baguette is a FRENCH restaurant, with FRENCH food items. Several of the headers on their menu are in FRENCH (the language). The FRENCH spelling of soup = SOUPE. The header on their menu is Les Soupes, which is grammatically and orthographically correct in FRENCH. The other headers on the same menu are also in FRENCH (Les entrees, Les salades, Les pates, Les viandes, Les poissons, etc.), which is in keeping with the style of food on their menu -- FRENCH. Multiple individual dish descriptions also include words in FRENCH. I guess I don't understand where the problem is.

Tartare is the traditional FRENCH spelling of the Americanized tartar, or tar tar. Given that the dish itself is of FRENCH origin, and is being served in a (what was it?) FRENCH restaurant (or rather American restaurant with largely FRENCH influence), I'd say that, again, there is no problem.

Now, other issues, including atrocious abuse of apostrophes, I can most certainly agree with. Moving on now.

[kevinpate]

Life is often less messy if one doesn't sweat the petty things (or something like that)

[TheTravellers]

Let's see. La Baguette is a FRENCH restaurant, with FRENCH food items. Several of the headers on their menu are in FRENCH (the language). The FRENCH spelling of soup = SOUPE. The header on their menu is Les Soupes, which is grammatically and orthographically correct in FRENCH. The other headers on the same menu are also in FRENCH (Les entrees, Les salades, Les pates, Les viandes, Les poissons, etc.), which is in keeping with the style of food on their menu -- FRENCH. Multiple individual dish descriptions also include words in FRENCH. I guess I don't understand where the problem is.

Tartare is the traditional FRENCH spelling of the Americanized tartar, or tar tar. Given that the dish itself is of FRENCH origin, and is being served in a (what was it?) FRENCH restaurant (or rather American restaurant with largely FRENCH influence), I'd say that, again, there is no problem.

Now, other issues, including atrocious abuse of apostrophes, I can most certainly agree with. Moving on now.

Consistency, as I said before. But there is absolutely no way "Tar Tar" is an acceptable "Americanization" of Tartare (if you see a valid citation saying otherwise, please post it because I can't find one). And I'm not sure if you're quoting their online menu, but their printed menu is different from their online menu, so I was working off their printed menu which we saw when were there on Sat. (and their special Christmas menu, which had Tar Tar printed fairly large).

And yeah, I agree, apostrophe abuse is just so massive (shakes head in dismay)...

[Bunty]

Louie's sucks.

WHY? Are there sandwiches worse than Subway?

[Midtowner]

Putting non-anglicized words in italics helps abate some of that confusion.

[Architect2010]

So y'all (*that's* the proper spelling, not ya'll, since it's a contraction of you and all ) just blithely ignore or don't care that the menus of a fancy restaurant in the middle of downtown that hosts business travellers from all over misspells tons of stuff on its menu, therefore possibly giving the impression that we're semi-literate? I believe that the little things like that add up eventually... I could be completely wrong and that most people don't give a rat's a** how things are spelled and just echo some of the sentiments on here of "Whatever, happens all over, BFD", though.

No, I think you're being dramatic. I'm pretty sure that's all I said. So a few words around the city aren't spelled correctly, or you assume they aren't; how does that make Oklahoma City seem illiterate or semi-literate? That's just a huge generalization based off a few examples, and they weren't even blaringly obvious either.

And the whole generational crap is a bunch of garbage as well. Some of you are so full of yourselves. I just find it so funny because this board is knowingly comprised of people from all different ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc. Yet, some of you like to blow smoke out your mouth and expect everyone to believe it. As a Millennial, I get deeply offended when archaic, backwards generations like to chime in and criticize myself and my peers. Technology has never inhibited my ability to learn the difference between 'two' and 'too'. Diagram a sentence? My professor made us do that on the first day of class to make sure she had no one that might need to be sent to remedial classes. Needless to say, we ALL knew how to do it. Oh and when I text, I do it with proper punctuation, grammar, etc. I can back all of this up with my Composite ACT Score of 30, thank you very much.

I must add though that I hate diagraming sentences and I think it's an antiqued and outdated way to teach such a modern civilization. I say this because teaching and educational methods used today need to be completely reformed. We've been teaching our children the same exact way for a century. It needs to change, and that is more to blame for the brain-drain than anything.

[skyrick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_%26_Leaves

A great book for the compulsive proofreader. I love her obsession for the mistake in "Two Week's Notice".

[OKCisOK4me]

Good spellers are probably born, not made. I'm firmly convinced that spelling has nothing to do with intelligence and is an innate ability, like being a good artist. However, most poor spellers know who they are and should not volunteer to be in charge of signage.

I disagree. Because even if you learned how to spell correctly and you were typing on say, your computer, it would notify you of a word being misspelled or that it's not in the computer dictionary by putting the red squiggly line underneath the word so you can either fix it or you can highlight, right click and choose the correct spelling. I know that when I type the word February it gives me the squiggly line. Fortunately, I know how to spell it! They made that sign on a computer so they must not be literate on what certain things mean on a computer.

I believe this to be very true.
I have known plenty of people with advanced degrees and others who have been very successful in life but were poor spellers and grammatically poor writers.

And then I saw this ^^. I'm completely opposite! Okay, I was on a college campus for two years. It wasn't the life for me. Maybe I'll go back and finish one of these days, but I'm not 'degree'd' (new word) yet I would hate to spell something wrong. Maybe it's because I'm anal retentive and everything must be as perfect as possible, I don't know. If it comes down to being born then it's in the DNA. If it comes down to being learned (which I think is more than likely) then it's all about what's available to you--resources and what not.

Hey, if anyone knows that The Oklahoman has a spellchecker (and sports scores too, cause they're backward a lot) position available, let me know. Cause they have major issues too!

[semisimple]

I can back all of this up with my Composite ACT Score of 30, thank you very much.

My ACT score > yours.

[BG918]

WHY? Are there sandwiches worse than Subway?

Please tell me you did this on purpose.

[OKCisOK4me]

My ACT score > yours.

My ACT score was less than both of you guys. I think 23 or 24 was my high (bare minimum to get accepted to college), yet here I am with the big boys spelling my words like the day I learned them. What's your point? lol

[BBatesokc]

One of my favorites. Hangs on a fence in south OKC.

Not only is there two misspellings, but they used an image of a 35mm camera instead of a video camera.

[BBatesokc]

Another favorite. Again, in south OKC. Nothing strikes fear in criminals like illiteracy.

[OKCisOK4me]

I just now noticed this one on a menu while at work:



Notice Meridian, Portland and the word Pizza. Totally lame!

[BB37]

Another favorite. Again, in south OKC. Nothing strikes fear in criminals like illiteracy.

I'm frankly surprised 'Trespassers' wasn't spelled with an apostrophe (i.e., "Tresspasser's"). I never cease to be amazed at the number of folks who think any word ending in "s" has to have an apostrophe.

And I don't text all that much, but I spell out and punctuate all my words, to the amusement of my 20 Y/O daughter.

[Tritone]

May I contribute on a related thought? When I go into a store and see a price sign reading .99 cents, two pennies should suffice (even allowing for a penny tax). Right?

[BBatesokc]

Not that I had high expectations, but.........



Saw these two at NE 23 and Classen.

[Kerry]

The all-time best grammar is the business card for attorney Lionel Hutz. The card reads:

Work on contingency
No money down

When he takes Homer on as client he asks for $1000 but Homer breaks out the above card.

Lionel takes the card and says it was a typo and corrects it as follow

Work on contingency?
No, money down!

[Easy180]

Not that I had high expectations, but.........



Saw these two at NE 23 and Classen.

Damn. Joe the Plumber has really hit rock bottom

[PennyQuilts]

Damn. Joe the Plumber has really hit rock bottom

Well, he seems to have nabbed a kind of cute gal. That ought to count for something.

[OKCDrummer77]

The thing I've notice with "apostrophe abusers" is that they're not even consistent. They'll have several pluralized words in the same sentence/paragraph/Facebook update, and some will have the apostrophe and some will not.

[Midtowner]

Worst apostrophe abuser I know.

If you're ever driving the stretch of Boulevard in Edmond between 2nd and Danforth, keep your eyes peeled for an apartment complex (on the West side of the road near the old High School) called The Corner's.

I have seriously considered buying some brown paint and painting over that apostrophe.

[ljbab728]

I firmly believe that the internet with email and instant messaging has been a huge contributor to this problem. I'm super picky about spelling and grammar and can't tell you how many times I've been in a hurry when sending an email to a customer and saw an error when I looked at it later. I always worried about what they thought about me when they received it but, after it's sent, it seemed a little strange to send a correction to a business client. It probably bothered me more than it did them but I still want to look professional.

[kevinpate]

Mid, maybe it's owned Mia Corner?
8^)