"grammar vigilantes" . . . banned from national parks . . .

[Ptah]

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/08/22/20080822grammarcops0822.html


Typo vigilantes answer to letter of the law
Crusaders whited-out, corrected historic Canyon sign


Two self-anointed "grammar vigilantes" who toured the nation removing typos
from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a
historic marker at the Grand Canyon.

Jeff Michael Deck, 28, of Somerville, Mass., and Benjamin Douglas Herson, 28,
of Virginia Beach, Va., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Flagstaff after
damaging a rare, hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park.
They were sentenced to a year's probation, during which they
cannot enter any national park, and were ordered to pay restitution.

According to court records, Deck and Herson toured the United States from
March to May, wiping out errors on government and private signs. On March 28,
while at Desert View Watchtower on the South Rim, they used a white-out product
and a permanent marker to deface a sign painted more than 60 years ago by artist
Mary Colter. The sign, a National Historic Landmark, was considered unique and
irreplaceable, according to Sandy Raynor, a spokeswoman for the
U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix.
-------------------------
edit to add link to Mary Colter's Photograph Index:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/grca/photos/colter/index.htm

--------------------------
All you "grammar vigilantes",



be careful out there.

[NJmaverick]

1. Now that is just plain silly

[Ptah]

14. Which part is silly?

[Radical Activist]

2. They've got to be Republicans

[LiberalEsto]

3. More likely English majors

Frustrated English majors

[SOteric]

6. Perhaps they were English majors with no sense of perspective.

There are a great many of us with a sense of perspective.

[Ptah]

4. Here's some more information about the painter of that sign, Mary Colter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Colter

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (April 4, 1869 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – January 8, 1958)
was an American architect.

As a child Mary Colter traveled with her family through frontier Minnesota, Colorado
and Texas in the years after the American Civil War. After her father died in 1886
Colter attended the California School of Design in San Francisco. In 1901, the
Fred Harvey Company (of the famous Harvey Houses) offered her the job of decorating
the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. Colter began working full-time for the company in 1910,
moving from interior designer to architect.

For the next thirty years, working as one of few female architects and in rugged conditions,
Colter completed 21 projects for Fred Harvey. She created a series of landmark hotels and
commercial lodges through the southwest, including the La Posada, the 1922 Phantom Ranch
buildings at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and five structures on the south rim of the
Grand Canyon: the Hopi House (1905), Hermit's Rest (1914), the observatory Lookout Studio (1914),
the 70-foot Desert View Watchtower (1932) with its hidden steel structure, and the
Bright Angel Lodge (1935); Colter decorated, but did not design, the El Tovar Hotel.

[blueraven95]

5. okay, so they shouldn't have defaced an irreplaceable sign

but I can't help finding their mission awesome and rather funny.


:hi:

on edit: After reading the article, I have a few thoughts:

How does someone pay restitution on an irreplaceable sign? Since the park administrators are clearly claiming that they can't replace it, how do they come up a dollar amount? Seems very arbitrary to me.

Note to self, don't keep a diary of illegal activities. It will be used against you. (To me, that seems the same as being forced to testify against yourself, but what do I know?)

I wish the article had shown pictures from before and after. I would have liked to see the before and after.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

7. This is like Batman for nerds.

[kath]

8. "emense"?!! Ack - I would have wanted to correct that one.

Also a misplaced apostrophe and comma, but the wonderfully reported (not) story doesn't give details.
I don't know about you, but I learned about apostrophes in 3rd grade, and got it the first time. NOT a difficult concept. AT. ALL.

[Ptah]

15. Was your third grade in the 1880s?

I imagine rules and usages have changed since this sign was made.

[Catch22Dem]

25. The article says it was made 60 years ago

Where'd the 1880s thing come from?

[Ptah]

27. That's when the artist would have been in third grade, when

grammar was quite different.

[Zuiderelle]

9. Fess up! Which DUers did that?

[Fran Kubelik]

10. I love it!!

:rofl:

I mean, I totally understand that they went too far with the Mary Colter sign. But I love these guys!!!!

[tigereye]

11. that's so compulsive and insensitive...

:wtf:


wouldn't a letter with corrections have sufficed?

[MorningGlow]

12. LOL I totally understand where these guys are coming from

I'm a grammar cop, too, and I see all kinds of errors on signs. (A major pet peeve--billboards with the error "everyday"--meaning commonplace--instead of the correct "every day".) Granted, the fact that they messed with a sign that was rare and historic is a shame (did they know it was?), but I can see how they were driven to fix signs. I've had the urge to do that to all those carved wooden signs on people's houses that say "The Smith's" instead of the correct "The Smiths'".

[XemaSab]

18. Re: The Smith's

I could argue it both ways.

EIther the Smiths live there, or it's Smith's place.

I could even argue that it's the Smiths' house.

[MorningGlow]

21. Yeah, but

"The Smith's" means the house belongs to the blacksmith (singular), not Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That would be "The Smiths'". And along the same lines, I'd hate to find out who owns the house labeled as "The Johnson's"... :scared: :rofl:

[fishwax]

19. "everyday" is acceptable, particularly as an adjective

[MorningGlow]

20. But the meanings are different

"Everyday" is an adjective, yes, and used in instances such as "boring old everyday duties". But "every day" means just that--"each day"--as in "Be sure to take your medication every day." If you say "Be sure to take your medication everyday", that's incorrect. Yet I see that usage all OVER the place, especially in advertising. Keep an eye out--now that I've pointed it out, I'll bet you'll see it everywhere too.

[fishwax]

23. yes, I've seen that often

I agree with that distinction, and it's actually the one I wanted to make, but your post here is much more clear about it. But I've seen people offer blanket objections to everyday as one word, and I thought your original post might be one of them :)

[Turbineguy]

26. Actually I must confess

to being irritated at those license plate frames that say "Alumni".

But my Latin's a bit rusty after 40 years.

[kath]

13. Here's the Google cache of the Arizona part of their trip.

Unfortunately, their website is now down, and even in the cached page the Grand Canyon pictures are gone. They apparently were used as evidence in the court case. There are other photos on the page.
http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:5ntxmkOvGvoJ:www.jeffdeck.com/teal/blog/%3Fcat%3D18+TEAL+photos+apostrophe+%22grand+canyon%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=14&gl=us

If anyone can find a photo of the Grand Canyon sign somewhere, could you post it here?

Journalism is so bad these days that NONE of the articles on this incident describe the typos on the sign. Pathetic.

[MadrasT]

16. I confess

I've actually done that. (Corrected signs.) I did it on an Air Force base once (as a trespassing civilian).

Sounds like they went a little too far, though.

[Ptah]

17. Keith Olberman added them to the worst persons in the world.

"Our sources say that the judge was going to order them to get a life,
but apparently it's too late for that"

[fishwax]

22. Vandalizing signs in national parks is uncool

I wish I could see the before and after of the original sign.

[Ptah]

24. Here's a picture.

[Ptah]

28. Kick for picture of sign.

:kick: