How many taxis?
Wednesday 17th June 2009, 3:00PM BST.
Wellington’s new bus station was officially opened this week in a blaze of publicity – but it appears in all the excitement someone forgot to examine the new bus station sign.
A Shropshirestar.com reader got in touch to ask why the word “taxis” on the sign had an apostrophe as none was needed.
Wellington Mayor Councillor Barry Tillotson said: “This is a classic example of of the way these signs are done in the borough.
“The people responsible for them should go on Countdown.”
Marie Claire, spokeswoman for the Plain English Campaign, said of the unnecessary apostrophe: “I have never known a little tadpole cause such big waves in the pond of the English language.”
This afternoon Telford & Wrekin Council spokeswoman Sylvia Herbert said the offending apostrophe had been removed.
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That’s nothing – this morning I saw a large package in the back of a courier’s van, addressed to “Telford & Wrekin Council, The Lord FIRKIN School, Stirchley, Telford”. Perhaps it was addressed by a disgruntled former pupil…..?
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Of course it’s a big deal, someone got paid probably a lot of money to design that sign. It looks sloppy and should be changed.
Marie Claire???
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To quote the article above:
Wellington Mayor Councillor Barry Tillotson said: “This is a classic example of of the way these signs are done in the borough.
‘of of’? Ha ha.
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Another case of pedantic people with nothing better to do than spend their time trying to point out other peoples mistakes.
Who cares as long as the message gets across?
Educational and grammatical snobbery gets in the way of creativity.
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well on my first visit since the new bus station has been open i have to say ” Where are the bins ” i could not find one bin at the station and the next question going to be is ” why is there so much litter ” plus with people smoking they are going to be droping the ends on the floor and as a non smoker i wouldnt like to see this.
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So, Vincent D, what exactly is wrong with insisting on correct spelling, grammar and punctuation (a lack of which causes confusion, ambiguity and plain incomphrension)? Would you send out a CV entirely in text speak? After all, most people would be able to understand it, and it’s only the ignorant few who would have no idea what it meant. I’d rather risk looking like a pedant than looking like an ignoramus.
Perhaps whilst they’re at it, they can change the sign near Lilleshall, the sign near Shrewsbury and the sign near the A41/A5 roundabout all of which say “HGV’s”. I pointed the latter out to Shropshire County Council who took eight months to reply, telling me that there wasn’t the budget to fix it.
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Rthorpe, you do realise, don’t you, that you should have put a comma after your first “sad”? It should read, “You are a sad, sad person”.
While I’m on the subject, you also need a comma after “hear hear” and before Vincent D (proper noun, you see).
So, apart from having two basic errors in two paragraphs, excellent work. Well done.
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