When English is your first language and you can't even speak it...

Last week I walked into a restaurant for pizza. A wall dedicated to fishing featured an uber cute fly-fishing sign that read:

"Reel men play with they're flies"

The cute play on words was totally lost to the grammatical error. Did you catch it? If not, that knocking you hear should be the English Police. And don't get it twisted. They use tasers.


Worse - Somebody tried to fix the offending word  on the wooden sign and almost ruined the paint in that spot.

(For those who ran like maniacs  to find the answer in a kid's textbook, the offending word is "they're.")

Even Worse - After more examination, I believe the culprit did incorrectly "fix" the word from "their" to "they're."


Folks, please remember something before this daughter-of-an English-major-and-lifelong-teacher has an ips-fit:


They're = "They Are"
Their - (something belongs to/pertains to them)

You're = "You Are"
Your = (something belongs to/pertains to you)


You get the pattern?


A comedian on the radio recently attributed the following bit to an actual conversation. My teacher-momma thankfully remains in the land-of-the-living, so she won't be "rolling over in any grave." But sloppy English is the equivalent of a dog whistle to teachers. Mommy probably snapped her neck miles away when this one aired:

Sk-youze me. Sk-youze me. Cann-eye talks-you a quesh-shun?

Huh ?? !!

Cann.....eye.... TALKS-you a QUESH-shun ????

[pause] D*mn! Who learnt you how to spoke ??

People, I went blind for about 2 seconds and almost crashed my car when this mess played on the radio.


Note to self: Get an iPod for driving.

Comments

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Ms. Bond
people drive me up the wall with misused words and poor spelling.
it "peaked" my curiosity--well, that's a tough one
I "poured" over it for hours--another tough one
but "its" and "it's" are pretty easy to differentiate between if one cares to take the time.