Friday, November 26, 2010

WalMart's gearing up for Black Friday...



...as is evidenced by the stacks of shrink-wrapped 42" televisions. But what on earth happened in terms of the sign reading "Merchendise not for sale untill 5am"? Clearly, whoever was in charge of the signs cannot spell to save his or her life, but the individual also colorblind to the red squiggly line that would have underlined the incorrectly spelled words? I understand that he/she was all riled up for the beginning of holiday/heavy shopping season (OMGBLACKFRIDAYGOTTABUYEVERYTHING), but the red line does not indicate early Christmas spirit. It means you have a spelling error (and for future reference, the green line indicates a grammatical error. Again, not holiday spirit). After not catching these glaring errors on the computer, however, it's no surprise that the incompetent fool was able to print and post FIVE of these signs on the plastic-wrapped palates without noticing his folly.

This photo looks like something I would have found under the "Engrish" tab of failblog.org, but alas, I took it with my very own cell phone. As a self acclaimed spelling and grammar fan (read: stickler), I'm not sure if this sighting should make me laugh or cry. The entire sign consists of six words (counting "5" and "am" as one word, due to the lack of space between them). Two of these words are incorrectly spelled. 2/6=.3333333333. Approximately 33% of this sign is incorrect. That's a 33% fail. The English concentrator within me died a little bit when I first saw this in my hometown's WalMart. However, upon further reflection (read: staring at the photo on my cellphone and chuckling to myself), I've realized that this occurrence is just so classic Wally World that a different little part of me feels nostalgic when I see the fail. It's a comforting reminder of home and why shouting "FAIL!" was at one time so popular.

This is not to say that I spell everything correctly the first time. I don't. But I do a. hit spellcheck and b. read my document before printing. Sorry, but a six word phrase just doesn't take that long to proofread.

Welcome home. Welcome to Lisbon. Welcome to WalMart.

No comments:

Post a Comment