I saw the item below and had quite a few giggles. Should I send a note to the organization to bring to their attention the irony of the course descriptions?
For the record, I must note that Americans wrote this. I would cut non-native speakers of English a lot more slack.
Oh dear. You've touched on one of the things that really gets my knickers in a knot. I love the irony in the course descriptions.
ReplyDeleteThere's an American woman with whom I work on an exchange program who does not understand where apostrophes do and do not belong. She constantly writes things like "I spoke with the Smith's last night..." and "We will be going to dinner with the Smith's, Miller's, and Johnson's tonight." Good lord, woman, learn your own language!
The smartypants in me would like to ask that woman, "The Smith's what? The Smiths' daughter?"
ReplyDeleteI also get all in a bunch when people indiscriminately use quote marks. For example, saying something like: the line starts "here." I also knew someone who labeled an institution's files with the year in quote marks.
What really gets me, though, is when it's inconsistent. I could almost understand if the person totally didn't get it, but when that person mixes up the use with no rhyme or reason, it's even more bizarre.