Thursday, March 24, 2016

Your spelling homework

You would hate being in one of my German classes.  Not only do I embrace the role of surrogate parent and try to embarrass my students at every opportunity, not only do I force them to listen to more German rap than is healthy, not only do I actually expect them to speak German in my classes, but on top of all of the German, I also correct their English.

"Can me and Julie go to the office real quick?"

"Sorry?"

"Can me and Julie go to the office?"

"I didn't catch that."

"CAN ME AND JULIE - "

"Excuse me?"

"Oh... Can Julie and I go to the office?"

"And now in German!"

"Ugh..."

Yes, I am that teacher.

The truth is mistakes in spelling and grammar make me a little guano.  I could tell you that being a language teacher makes me hypersensitive to all languages, but in fact I've always been this way.  Grow up with parents who insist you speak the King's English, and you might turn out similarly.

When outside of the classroom, I try not to say anything because I realize doing so would make me sound like a colossal douche.  Likewise, when reading something online, I try to give most people a break.  Blogs, Facebook posts, tweets, etc usually get a pass because they are mostly written by every day folk who don't share my neurosis for perfect spelling and grammar.

But professional publications and/or major brands should probably know better, in my humble opinion.

Which brings us to tonight's running-themed spelling homework.  Can you spot the spelling mistakes in the following examples?

First up is Zelle, the Runner's World offshoot for women:


Next up, Spartan Race shows us again how "your" vs. "you're" can be quite the conundrum:


And on to Runner's World.  Even the biggest publication of them all lets a few errors slip through once in awhile:



RunHaven reminds us that the rule's for apostrophe's can be very tricky.


And last but not least, not even my beloved Haddonfield Running Company can escape my wrath:



This post probably won't win me any friends, but at least I was able to get all of this off my chest.

Seen any mistakes lately?  Let me know!

5 comments:

  1. My parents are language teachers (Spanish) and would drive us crazy when we were growing up because they insisted on impeccable English and Spanish spelling and grammar. I guess that explains why I feel anxious when I see errors like the ones you posted!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was actually catching up on your blog and your use of 'Stevie and me'several times was bugging me...

    Yeah, I'm that guy too ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not a problem! I don't mind being corrected! Can you let me know which posts you're referring to so I can correct them? Dankeschön!

      Delete
    2. I think it was just this one actually - Stevie and me in the first paragraph:

      http://ithoughttheysaidrum.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/master-baker.html?m=1

      Also, I just realised that I made a typo in my original comment...oh the irony! ��

      Delete

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