robohara.com

In China they don’t make Sharpies — they make SUPER SHARPIES!

For the most part they feel, appear and perform like their non-super counterparts. Their superness, I suspect, is printed on the back of the packaging.

- FECAP WHEN. NOT IN USE
- NEUTRAL, SMELL LIGHTFAST
- QUICK DRYING WATER PROOF

Man, there are a lot of weird things going on this sign. My post’s title gives away the punchline — the word “holiday” has obviously been misspelled — but the more I look at this note the weirder it becomes.

First of all, it’s a handwritten note that uses fourteen different fonts. I mean, seriously. I’ve seen fewer fonts on ransom notes. For example, while the letter “E” in “We” looks relatively normal, you’ve got that “E” in “closed” that’s twice as wide as any other letter, and the “E” in the second “We” is the only letter written in cursive. The note seems to be written using calligraphy, except for the word “and”. It’s just sitting there, all tiny and ugly. Every other word in the note was carefully crafted. Just look at those hanging letter “Y”s with their cute little hooks. The only thing missing here is a letter “I” with a heart over it. And yet the word “and” just jumps out at you. It’s like half the size of all the other letters. And what’s up with that weird subscript “T” hanging off of “Thank you”? It’s almost like sarcasm. It’s like, less than a capital “T”, or even less than a regular “T”. It’s like the opposite of “Thank You,” in a way. Man, the more I read it, the more I think whoever wrote this note is schizophrenic.

And then there’s July 6th. The restaurant will “be closed on July 4 and 5″ and will “be reopen on July 7.” I feel like the goofy “be reopen on” typo is a herring to throw you off of the real problem here — what the hell is everybody doing on July 6? I forget if this is the year of the Rat or Chicken or whatever but I’m wondering if it doesn’t only have 364 days in it. Don’t you kind of get the feeling that something kickass is happening on July 6th that we’re not invited to? How am I supposed to have a good Holliday while thinking about that???

I realize Thai menus may seem like easy picking when it comes to typos, but I found this one particularly entertaining. Soup and spring rolls come with “TOGO ORGERS,” not to be confused with “Togo the Ogre,” whom they just can’t seem to give away.

Due to the recent nationwide salmonella outbreak there appears to be a shortage of both tomatoes and the letter “E”. Spotted at a local Sonic restaurant. I think my favorite thing about this one is how it is stressed in all capitals, as if to say, “ATTENTION CUSTOMERS, THIS WORD IS SPELLED WRONG.”

Now hiring, one spell checker for a local snowcone stand. Must be able to remove apostrophes from such words as “Float’s”, “Shake’s”, “Malt’s”, and “Sundae’s”.

When I see signs like this one it makes me wonder why “cones” didn’t get an apostrophe. “Float’s”, “Shake’s”, “Malt’s”, and “Sundae’s” all got apostrophes — why not “Cones”?

Spelling: D-
Logic: F+
Snowcone: A- (A litte light on the juice but otherwise delicious.)

And, obviously, un-spellchecked signs.

The only thing I hate more than coconut is people misspelling it. This typo was actually spotted by my friend Justin while out having lunch. Seeing a typo publicly affixed in a permanent place like this is way more delicious than any pie could be.

For more public typos, check out this link: http://www.robohara.com/?cat=15

Back when I was four-years-old, I remember watching an episode of The Electric Company that explained how apostrophes worked. The short cartoon involved two words, a bulldozer, and a crane. In the cartoon, two words were pushed together, like DO and NOT. Eventually they would get pushed together so tightly that the lettter “O” would disintegrate, leaving DON(pile of rubble)T. A crane would then pick up a piece of the “O” that looked like an apostrophe, and hang it in the air, spelling “DON’T”. The idea, which I was able to comprehend at the age of four, was that the aspostrophe replaces missing letters.

That was a long-winded way of stating that if you are trying to say “IT IS”, you should use “IT’S”, as in, “IT’S included with your Salad Bar.” Do I point this out when people use the incorrect form of the word when they e-mail me? No. Do I point it out when a restaurant has had professional signs created incorrectly? You bet.

My work is never done.

Same store. Different sign. Another extra apostrophe. They must have ordered too many this holiday season.

Gift Basket’s ready to go. Complete with an unnecessary apostrophe.