Sticklers of the World Unite


The thing about the ubiquity of photo-taking devices is that you don't feel guilty just pointing and snapping. So I've also been playing the language police, collecting evidence of crimes against grammar. Here's a sign at the Subway in Raffles City that reads "Satisfy your crave". Ugh.

Comments

Anonymous said…
it could be more a lack of foresight (the signboard guy found out too late:-the font was too big and there was not enough space for "craving" to appear in its entirety) than ignorance of grammatical rules.

by the way, i saw your blogger profile. I noticed annie hall was the first movie you listed as a favourite. that's a damn funny movie that i like too.
23 May 2004 at 06:58
Daryl said…
I would be more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the Subway franchise in Singapore - as I recall - seems to have grammatical issues with the word "crave". Besides this sign, they've also turned the nice transitive form of the verb ("what do you crave?") into an ugly intransitive form ("what do you crave for?"). Admittedly, the latter is a fairly common problem in Singapore: I'm still undecided about whether to eat at Vietro because their flyer uses "crave for".
23 May 2004 at 07:32
Daryl said…
Oh, and I meant they used "what do you crave for?" to mean "what do you crave?", which is what gets my goat. "What do you crave for?" is perfectly grammatical as an existential / Buddhist question (i.e. "Why do you crave? Desire causes suffering").
23 May 2004 at 07:37
Anonymous said…
it took me a while to understand your comments. i guess they shouldn't turn a transitive verb into an intransitive verb. but i'll never let the quality of grammar on a flyer dictate whether i'll eat at the restaurant, for me the quality of food is far more impt than the quality of grammar!
23 May 2004 at 08:02
Anonymous said…
oops. "crave" can be either a transitive or intransitive verb. my booboo.
23 May 2004 at 08:17
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
23 May 2004 at 08:21
Daryl said…
I remain torn about making decisions when bad grammar is involved. If the food is really good, I suppose the bad grammar can be overlooked, but if it's borderline then why encourage bad grammar?
24 May 2004 at 02:38
Anonymous said…
i've been frequenting your blog and am curious about something: how much of your personality do you reveal in your blog? does your blog only reveal the tip of an iceberg with regard to your personality?
26 May 2004 at 09:37
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
26 May 2004 at 09:37
Daryl said…
Hmm. I do think what you see is really only the tip of the iceberg. I contain multitudes - as does everyone in this world - and I do have thoughts outside this blog that aren't always captured... to paraphrase Lennon, life is what happens when you're busy blogging other things.
28 May 2004 at 06:31
Daryl said…
And who is "Anonymous"?
1 June 2004 at 02:44
Anonymous said…
"Anonymous" is someone from work. If you can figure out what this number - 49618 - means, you can figure out who I am. I've made it quite easy for you to find out despite wanting to remain anonymous!

p.s. I got the Joss Stone album (amongst other cds) over the weekend too, was drawn by the album cover. Haven't listened closely to the music though.
2 June 2004 at 00:02
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