I'm in the process of buying a new car and so I had a look at some review sites on the net. This classic line from a gentleman whose first language quite obviously wasn't English really made me laugh . . .

"I recomed this car especialy to young boys who loves fast riding for equal price."

This pub offers such great service - they even cut the food up for you!

One of my industry colleagues wrote this in his weekly comment to the telecoms fraternity. I thought it was great so have included it here.

"I was on the way back from the school run last Thursday morning in a queue of traffic behind a very smart looking white van. It was all polished up and the sign writing on the back indicated that the driver was a certain Dennis O’Farrell, plumber of said parish.

Ok, so it was a nicely turned out van but… Well I happened to notice below Dennis’, home and mobile phone numbers written on the back his web site address and the anorak in me screamed ‘Hey dude, check that one out when you get home’. So I did.

It turns out that Denis and I are pretty much on the same wavelength when it comes to using the most appropriate form of communication for the job in hand. Imagine. You are up to your ankles in water from a leak in the loft that is cascading down the stairs in a very passable interpretation of Niagara Falls. ‘No problem’ you say to yourself, ‘I’ll get on the web, find a plumber, fill out their ‘contact us’ page with my problem details and see if I get a response sometime in the near future and meanwhile get on with watching the rest of the football’.

Ain’t gonna happen is it? Dennis knows that too. He knows what people in that situation are going to do.

Which is why his web address is www.usethebloodyphone.com

Nice one Dennis Incidentally, the domain name is still free if you want it. Dennis just made it up.

Have a great week."

Sent to me by an industry colleague who travels around Asia on business!

Found on one of those 'high speed property sale' websites that are springing up all over the place!

"If necessary we can complete on the purchase of your property within 28 days, although under normal circumstances purchases are completed within four weeks."

Tough decision, now which should I aim for??

I was in London at the weekend and we decided to have a curry. There were two Indian restaurants on either side of the street, neither of which we had been to before and both of which looked pretty similar. We chose the one with this sign in the window (which also happened to be the one with the most people in!) and we weren't disappointed.

Now why can't more companies be like that? Can you imagine BT working to the same ethos?

Now I don't know about you, but the last I heard mankind still hadn't worked out how to predict the weather with any kind of accuracy. Which makes this instruction on the back of a bottle of weedkiller a little pointless wouldn't you say?!

"Do not use before heavy rain"

I had to leave my bag in a London hotel luggage room the other day, and was amused by the sign on the light switch inside . . . The temptation to turn it and see what happened was huge!

Simple, just cancel the booking after you leave! I found this on one of the many discount hotel booking sites:

"Reservations for Radisson SAS Portman have to be cancelled 12 hours maximum after arrival date."

Could be a bargain . . . arrive at 10pm, leave at 8am and then call to cancel, perfect!

I saw this great sign in Next - seems like you can buy anything in shops these days :o)

Some more of my favourite menu mistranslations, from a recent trip to Northern France. These were all listed as individual items on a salad menu . . .

Gingerbread
Salad of the chief
Greedy slice of bread
Way bruchetta
Bread rubbed with garlic covered with goat's milk cheese sections
Thin straps of gruyeres
Seasoned nuts of a mayonnaise key
Shandy of hard eggs
Cubes of celebrated powdered with grass of Provence (eh??!)
Breast green apple

Put them all together and what have you got? A complete mystery I should think!

I'm in the process of booking a holiday and some of the translations on hotels' websites are laugh-out-loud funny. Here is a gem from Turkey . . .

First the leisure activities:

The hotel disposes conversation centers of a fantastic!
Is boring doesn't give.
You can spend lovely hours with your friends here.
Bowling, Billiard, Dart, it is what for everybody!
You get natural also at ours "Strike Bar " provided with drinks.
Enjoy conversation purely!

Then the local places of interest:

Titreyengöl (the trembling lake) is on 3000 sqm.
22 hotel plants are located in this village with a capacity of approx. 18,000 beds.
Several species of bird and even also Beijing ducks live it in this village.

And lastly, the Turkish bath:

The Turkish bath (Hamam) is a special experience.
You let your soul dangle and enjoy you after an eventful day a good massage or a visit in the sauna! Jacuzzi (by the hour ), Hamam (Turkish bath), Sauna, Massages (e.g. Foam massage , Thai massage, Foot reflex massage),
Cosmetics studio with mud , Moss, Honey , Silica masks , etc. and hairdresser .

Would you like to keep your body fit?
You then go to ours fitness center!
There is something in the fitness center for everybody to exercise!

So just remember, all you have to do for a fantastic holiday is to 'get natural' in the bar, visit all 22 of the hotel plants and then 'let your soul dangle' in the Turkish bath. Perfect!

Just found this on a website about a gorilla tracking holiday in Rwanda . . .

"This large lodge located, close to the PNV headquarters, offers clean and comfortable rooms, nestling under a grove of large eucalyptus trees each with their own private bathroom."

Now those must be some serious 'back to nature' facilities!

I came across this years ago but had forgotten about it until I was chatting so someone yesterday about the move to 'Ban the Apostrophe'.

www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

If you're ever unsure about how to use an apostrophe, this is the place to go in order to find out!

This might help too . . . sorry the image quality is not better.

Received by one of my business associates in an email from an industry colleague:

“A new quality control process has been put in place, to ensure that typo’s and grammatical errors are not present when you come to publish the completed surveys.”

If you can't spot the error, scroll down and have a look at my post entitled 'Punctuation Soap Box' . . . !

I went to Spain at the weekend to my friend's hotel (see my Useful Links page or visit www.cortijovalverde.com - it's fab!). We flew with Monarch, and I found this brilliant quote in their inflight magazine. It was an article on developments at various UK airports and how new technology was making life easier for passengers.

"Advances in technology a Birmingham Airport have also enabled the launch of CUSS (Common Use Self Service) kiosks. So, in addition to online check-in you can now also avoid the queues at the airport by checking in via CUSS."

Can you imagine it? "I want to bloody well check in and I want to do it right f*****g now!"

It's hard to believe it's not an April fool joke.

And just a little extra thing to make you smile, in a sunny pavement cafe in the Andalucian town of Antequera your lunch wouldn't be complete without . . .

Enjoy!

Talk to me! I know people are reading this but I'm not getting comments, or many emails with other gems to add. You must come across them. Please take a moment to email me at gill@freelancecopywriting.biz.

Interestingly, the only comment I have had in response to one of these posts was to tell me about a typo. Funny how people take the time to mention negatives, but not positives. Possibly a lesson for all of us, including me . . .

OK, I'm going off-topic a bit here but this one really astounded me! I've been having all sorts of problems with my mobile phone. It keeps switching off mid-call and I've had four new handsets and a replacement sim card. I finally got them to agree to replacing the handset for a different model (after a hour of heated discussion in the shop) and was told the new one would arrive in five to 10 working days.

It was no surprise to me at all that after 10 days I had not heard anything, so I went back into the shop. "Oh it came in days ago", they said. "We tried to call you but couldn't get hold of you. You don't have an answering machine". Further investigation revealed that they had called my home number, and when they did not get a reply, they just left it.

Let's think about this, it's a mobile phone shop, they provided my mobile phone and my mobile phone number, which is on their system. And you're telling me that nobody thought to try calling me on my mobile phone?? Especially when I was obviously a very unhappy customer who needed the issue sorting out as fast as possible. Astonishing!

I saw this sign pinned up in a coffee shop the other day. I think what they were trying to say is that food which was not bought there could not be eaten on the premises, but someone had stuck another notice over the top half, which meant that the remaining visible sign read very differently, exactly the opposite in fact!

A sentence which kind of makes sense. You know what they are getting at but it's somehow not quite right! Here are a couple of gems . . .

Sign in a fruit and veg shop:

"Please refrain your children from playing with the fruit"

I'm thinking it should have been 'Please restrain your children from . . .' or maybe 'Please make sure that your children refrain from . . .

And then there was the sign in a discount clothing warehouse:

"Please do not try on the underwear for hygienic reasons"

Which I guess should have been '. . . for reasons of hygiene'. I may also be giving them too much credit for spelling 'hygienic' correctly but I can't quite remember if they did or not. To be fair though, it is one of the commonest mis-spellings there is!

Mashed, boiled or pureed I wonder?? Either way, they could be pretty revolting to put your feet in . . .

"Womens size 6 swede boots . . . "

And I won't even mention the missing apostrophe . . . well, maybe just this once!

I've always thought about this when I'm typing an email really quickly and I find I've typed 'not' instead of 'now'. Just that one letter can completely change the meaning of the whole message. "The product is NOW available/NOT available" or "we are NOW willing/NOT willing to discuss the matter". Wars could start over less!

I was reminded of this when reading a copy of a trade magazine for the telecoms industry (naming no names, but it was the larger format of the two, you know who you are!). There was an interview with a new and very senior staff member of a major manufacturer, who had commented that "the marketplace is increasingly focused on the exciting areas of Unified Communications and Convergence". These are two key areas in the telecoms world by the way for those of you who are not from the industry! However, given their importance, it was a little worrying to see that the person who had typed the article, be it an artworker or the original writer, had managed to miss the 'c' out of exciting. So these two very important business areas were said to be 'exiting' - which puts a rather different perspective on things!

I guess the moral of the tale is, every letter counts, even when it's not there at all . . .

Found in a restaurant menu in Villefranche, South of France near Nice. The French version read . . .

Salade Chevre Chaud
Salade, tomate, pignons, croutons, fromage de chevre

Now, bearing in mind that ‘pignons’ are pine nuts, the English translation read . . .

Hot Goat Cheese Salad
Salad, tomato, cogs (sprockets), croutons, goat’s milk cheese

Better watch out for your teeth when eating one of those!

Given that public toilets are often referred to as a 'public conveniences' I thought this sign was very clever, although probably not intentionally so!

Received in a confirmation email from a Spanish hotel . . .

"We cater for a wide range of dietary requirements including diabetic and glutton free"

No good for me then!

Let's get this straight once and for all. YOU DO NOT NEED AN APOSTROPHE ON A PLURAL!

OK, now I've got that off my chest, let me explain. In the majority of cases, people get it right when it comes to plurals, though you do see the odd sign for "banana's" in a fruit shop, or "television's" in an electrical shop.

The problem comes with numbers and two or three letter abbreviations. Hence the title of this post, part of which I saw on a low cost airline's website the other day, as follows - 100's of 1000's of cheap flights on offer!

I've also seen something similar in Tesco which has signs in the electrical department selling TV's and CD's, or in email messages from suppliers telling me that 'the PDF's are attached'. Let me say it again. YOU DO NOT NEED AN APOSTROPHE ON A PLURAL. And that is the rule, regardless of whether the word is abbreviated, or shown as a number, or not. Take these examples, which most people would get right if the word was written in full . . .

hundreds, not hundred's
thousands, not thousand's
televisions, not television's
compact discs, not compact disc's
portable document format, not portable document format's

. . . although this last one is a bit odd anyway people talk about 'a PDF' but really this makes no sense, just as getting your car 'an MOT' (Ministry of Transport') makes no sense either, but again, that's another conversation!

Anyway, hopefully this makes the point - just because something is written in numbers or as a three letter acronym, it doesn't mean that it suddenly needs an apostrophe for a plural, when you wouldn't put one if you wrote the word in full.

Right, that's me done for the day, I'm getting off my soapbox now!

As the ice-skating judges would say, 8 out of 10 for artistic impression, but 1 out of 10 for technical merit I'm afraid!

Sometimes a company name explains clearly what you do, and sometimes it doesn't. So the easiest thing is to add an explanatory strapline to support it, as many companies do. But if you get that wrong, you can just end up confusing people even more. Here's a classic . . .

I received a leaflet through the door from a company called The Wallshield Group, which gives you an idea about what they do already. In a nutshell, they apply a specialist exterior coating to your house walls which lasts for years and protects against weathering and so on. The leaflet was quite neatly produced and the copywriting was reasonably coherent and gramatically correct. Which makes it even more bizarre that the strapline they use under the name at the top reads as follows:

"Specialists in the application of domestic and industrial properties"

So let me get this right. You're going to take my domestic property - and 'apply' it to what exactly??

I found this beautifully 'amateur' advert in a magazine called What Laptop the other day. Though you can't really expect much from a magazine whose name is that grammatically incorrect. I'm sure it should be 'What Laptop?' or even better 'Which Laptop?', but that's another conversation entirely!

Apologies if anyone from 'Laptop Parts' is reading this . . . but these were my favourite bits of your advert:

'Hardrives'

'Lapotop keyboards'

and

'New web site now on line' - tell me, where else would it be?

And lastly, there were two web addresses on the advert, one of which was www.pcupgrade.co.uk. I'm wondering if you might find pictures of women there with VERY large, er, assets??

John Lewis is one of my favourite stores. I love the range of products and the quality of the customer service, but this description on their website made me laugh. A classic case of where someone tries to give you lots of information and be very helpful, but simply ends up in confusing the customer even more.

I was looking for a new fridge freezer, and the number and size of freezer drawers was quite important as I've never been happy with my existing ones, so I was reading the descriptions very carefully, when I came across this:

"Freezer has three drawers, two full width and one half depth."

Whch kind of makes sense until you really think about it . . .

Is the half depth one full width as well? Are the full width ones full depth, or half depth, or somewhere in between - and what does 'full depth' mean anyway? Or is the half depth one they refer to one of the full width ones in which case we know nothing about the third drawer? Or is . . . hmmm . . . I give up!

And while I'm on the subject of drawers, don't you just hate it when you see a sign in a furniture shop that says 'cabinet with three draws'?

There are millions of examples of wonderful mistranslations all over the world, so I thought I'd save only the very best for my website. This is a sign I found stuck to the inside of a loo door in a restaurant in Albufeira, Portugal a few years ago. I was so brilliant I had to steal it and photograph it!

Do you remember all those ads on TV for the 'Mint card'? The one with the rounded corner. Their strap-line is, 'You need a seriously good reason not to'. And I've found it.

In my local train station there's a ticket machine, which saves you standing in the enormous queue - but it has a note stuck on the front which reads:

'Please do not put Mint cards in this machine as they get stuck'.

Which would be a bit of a bugger at 7.30am on a cold and wet January morning if you had an urgent meeting in London, there was a massive queue, and you only had a Mint card with you!

Hmm, wonder if anyone has told their marketing department?

OK, I'm all for marketing via shock tactics when the time is right, but even I had to do a double take when I saw this company's stand at a DIY and Power Tool exhibition earlier this week . . .

The brief: Write a local newspaper advert for a car rental company to help them rent cabriolets in the Winter.

I love a good typo - and this is a classic. In my local petrol station today, right by the till, in preparation for Valentine's I presume, sat a big heap of very lovely fluffy teddies, holding hearts that said 'I Love You' on them. And right underneath, a not-so-lovely and obviously word-processed-and-photocopied sign which read:

£5.99

'I LOVE YOU' TEDDY BEERS

Sounds great! So where's the beer then?

I was in one of those fancy coffee shops the other day that sells a million types of flavoured coffees. Basically you buy the normal one and then have an extra shot of syrup to make it taste of hazlenut or gingerbread or whatever takes your fancy. They had a blackboard behind the counter with a long list of coffees on it, and then at the bottom a note which said 'Extra shot - 50p'

Except someone has rubbed the upright (or 'ascender' as they call it in typography-speak) off the 'h' on the word 'shot', which my 13 year old son thought was hysterical.

You work it out . . .

Amongst many other things, eBay is one of the most the most wonderful sources of dodgy grammar anywhere in the world. This is my latest favourite . . .

Double Bed + Mattress with Drawers
Sounds uncomfortable! Bet the drawer corners dig in . . .

Has a gold plated headrest (worn in places)

A bargain at twenty quid then . . .

This item has been used. Would be great for first time home buyer. This item is buyer collect. This bed also has 4 compartment 2 on eash side. Please fill free to make offers . . .

I went to see Chris Rock last night. He's a black Americal stand-up comedian if you've not heard of him, and very funny! But it's something that his support act (Mario Joyner) said which really struck a chord. He was talking about mobile phones, which - as I spend vast amounts of time on mine, and also do alot of work in the comms industry - was especially relevant. His argument was that we are far too willing to accept bad service. As in phone reception, not customer service. As he put it, if you were in a restaurant and the food had no taste - can you imagine the waiter saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm afraid there's no taste in that corner, we're not sure why, we think it bounces off the walls or something. I can try moving you to another table but I can't promise it will be any better".

We will happily move around to try to find a better signal as if this was totally acceptable. As Mario said, it seems that the phone companies invent phrases to explain their dodgy service and then WE pick them up and use them - telling people we're in a 'bad area' as we walk around trying to find a better signal. I know it's a mobile phone, but just for once I'd like to stand still and let the reception come to me!

The UK comedy industry would never have survived without them, especially Carry On films! We've all done it, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not - as my friend found out the other day when we were in Nando's. Having ordered a chicken platter for herself and two of her kids (aged 13 and 15) she said across the table in a loud voice . . . 

"I'll have the legs and you boys can have a breast each"

Cue much sniggering all round! Though I still think a recent accidental one of mine takes the biscuit. Picture the scene. You're in a business meeting with a new client discussing a letter to launch a referrals programme. You're talking about what to offer as the 'incentive' and he suggests a bottle of champagne. So what do you do? You say this of course:

"Why not make it a magnum? I always find that something that is bigger than the norm, bigger than you were expecting, is always more impressive."

And then you realise what you've said and try to keep a straight face!

Taxiiiiiiiii . . . . .

This just goes to prove that even a market-leading brand like Marks & Spencer doesn't pay as much attention to detail as they really should when it comes to punctuation. Or at last they try, but they're not always consistent.

The rule is that if you're referring to something which belongs to someone, or something, then you should include an apostrophe. E.g. Fred's hat (the hat belongs to Fred) not Freds hat . . .

So when I stood in the food section the other day it was interesting to see that they were selling - side by side - 'goat's cheese' and 'goats cheese'. I'm guessing different packaging design agencies were involved. It's a little matter in the general scheme of things I know, but someone at M&S really should be on the ball.

Or am I just being FAR too picky?!

If only that were true! OK, so this post is something a bit different, but it relates to marketing and customer communication - and is definitely another one of my 'soapbox' issues.

At the weekend I went bowling with my partner and our kids. We wanted to order some drinks so we pressed that wonderful little button that they have on some of the lanes nowadays and a waiter miraculously appeared. I ordered a Jack Daniel's and diet coke (anyone who reads this and knows me well will not be surprised by that!) and a vodka and coke, but asked for them to be in tall glasses with lots of coke.

Away went the guy, coming back five minutes later with two very small glasses, like they serve late at night in nightclubs when they want you to drink more. When I pointed out that I'd asked for tall glasses and extra coke his response was . . .

. . . wait for it . . .

"I'm sorry, I did ask, but this is how they come."

Excuse me?? As my boyfriend pointed out, does that mean they buy them ready made up in the glass and frozen, then just defrost them in a microwave and put them on a tray? I don't think so!

Anyway, after some fairly lengthy discussion he agreed to sort it out by getting some extra coke (which he then charged us for) and taller glasses, but it did make me laugh. Some businesses really do need to learn a thing or two about customer service!

Is it just me that gets infuriated by misuse of apostrophes? If it's not the absence of one when referring to something that belongs to someone (Freds hat) then it's the inclusion of one that simply shouldn't be there. The other day I was taking some photographs of a distribution warehouse for a client and they had hundreds of kids' sleepsuits on a rail, all with Tigger and Pooh Bear embroidered on the front . . . like this . . .

Best Friend's what? Someone at Disney, or George at Asda, really should have spotted that one before they made it out of the factory!

I thought I would include a Blog page in this website so that I can keep you updated with all of the bizarre and ridiculous things that people do with the English language. Like the sign in a bed shop I saw recently which read "In Stock Now!" and then in smaller letters underneath . . . "While stocks last".

No, really??

Anyway, I'd be very keen to hear from anyone who has experienced such similar misuses of the Queen's English, so email gill@freelancecopywriting.biz and let me know what you find!