Wednesday, October 19, 2011

When did I get so picky about grammar?

This bloom is on a bush called Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Rose in the Stanley Park Rose Garden. It has a label on a post in the ground underneath it that says so, but it has a grammar problem. The label says Brother's Grimm Fairy Tale Rose.

This is wrong because there is an apostrophe in it. The way it reads on the sign is that a Brother owns a Grimm Fairy Tale Rose... or even funnier, Brother is a Grimm Fairy Tale Rose!

There were two brothers with the last name of Grimm. They wrote stories. The stories are by the Brothers Grimm. The people who bred this rose named it after their stories.

After being irked by the sign (I take photos of the signs to make sure I get the names of the flowers correct in Flickr) I googled the details and found I was correct about the inappropriateness of the apostrophe.

So how did I get from being a child who thought spelling a word only one way was a sign of a lack of creativity to an adult who is bothered by apostrophes?

Why do I unintentionally relax when I find the first typo in every book I read? I know they are there, and I seem to be so happy when I find this is yet another book proving my theory that there is no such thing as a book without a spelling or grammar error.

When did the speed bumps on the road to reading enjoyment start bothering me so much?

Maybe I've read too much? No such thing.

Maybe I've read too much drivel? That's a possibility. So many things to read, and not that many years left to do it in. I don't have any patience for drivel left. Thank goodness I don't have any of my writing from my youth around anymore!

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