Can you spot the errors in these store signs seen recently around Chicago?

Milwuakee Furniture
FedEx Shiping
Matress Sale
Mens Wear

Do you care? Does anyone? What’s happened to the English language?

We stuffy dinosaur ex-English teachers sometimes take pride in recording and writing about the grammatical incorrectness around us—not that our own work is always error-free, but we can often blame our problems on editors, computers, or quirks of fate. How nice to discover that someone else cares, at least enough to seek publicity and a book deal.

The Typo Eradication Advancement League, or TEAL, is the quest of two Dartmouth College graduates, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, who, according to Chicago Tribune reporter Christopher Borrelli, “have circled the nation in search of awkward grammar construction. . . . They have faced stone-faced opposition” as they have offered to insert necessary apostrophes, remove unnecessary ones, and urge business owners to correct their signs.

TEAL has established a blog, chosen a teal duck mascot (appropriately named Gerund—see it at www.jeffdeck/teal), appeared on the Today Show, and attracted some interest in a book deal.

According to the TEAL blog, the group includes participants across the country. The blog sells T shirts, too. Here are two postings:

“What's This All About?

The Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) is dedicated to a more perfectly spelling union.

This March through May, we, sworn members of TEAL, will be taking a road trip around the country to stamp out as many typos as we can find, in public signage and other venues where innocent eyes may be befouled by vile stains on the delicate fabric of our language. We do not blame, nor chastise, the authors of these typos. It is natural for mistakes to occur; everybody will slip now and again. But slowly the once-unassailable foundations of spelling are crumbling, and the time has come for the crisis to be addressed. We believe that only through working together with vigilance and a love of correctness can we achieve the beauty of a typo-free society.”

From the “Typo Hunt Across America” page:

“Followers of the League have been able to find typos on their own pretty easily, but so far many of them seem to be having trouble with actually getting the typos fixed. The obstacles, as I see them, break down into two categories: 1) Physical, such as plastic or glass shielding the sign in which the typo occurs, or the typo being above or beyond one’s reach; and 2) Psychological, manifesting in either a fear of confronting the typo’s owner or a queasiness about whether such an action would in fact be justified. I cannot address the first category, as TEAL frowns upon corrective acts that endanger property value or personal well-being (or both), so I’ll take a moment to examine the second. There arises a whole stable of troubling questions when one considers whether to let someone know about a typo in or about their place of business; have you found that you’re asking yourself any of the following?”

[A series of questions and answers follows; this is just the first:]

“Will this guy kill me if I tell him that he spelled “potatoes” wrong? No, he is not allowed to under federal law. He may give you a dirty look. He may make an unsubtle effort to get you to leave the store. But chances are you will remain free from bodily harm. Just assess the neighborhood and the setting carefully first. Much like hiking or lake-swimming, typo-hunting is best enjoyed under the buddy system.”

Is all this for real? According to reporter Borrelli, “There’s an element of performance art here—an invisible line between genuine and absurd that they approach with each fresh encounter. They press their faces close to even the most innocuous handwritten neighborhood leaflet and scan carefully. They don’t smirk. But you detect one anyway, studiously smothered.”

Borrelli also asked if TEAL’s efforts to correct signs didn’t “remove a little charm from the landscape,” helping to hide “the human hand in cities that are quickly to succumbing to a numbing sameness.”

Deck replied that they didn’t want to see more chain stores (presumably with their cookie cutter, grammatically correct sameness), but that signs like the one on a California grocery store that misspelled “grocery” might turn off prospective customers.

Serious? Maybe. Effective? Well, Deck claims about a 50 percent score of corrected signs, but Chicago proved a bit more resistant. Deck and Herson encountered indifferent store clerks who said that the boss wasn’t around, so no changes could be made. At least one store manager reacted with “Leave it alone.” Still, carrying a few Sharpies and other tools, Deck and Herson managed to add a few needed apostrophes.

My cynical side says that typos will always be with us, for “to err is human.” And if all signs were suddenly corrected, we English teachers, former and current, would have to search harder for “What’s the English language coming to?” targets.

Nevertheless, I applaud the youthful enthusiasm of TEAL. Typos will never disappear, but at least you may make a few people notice them. Send me a review copy of your book—and be sure it’s typo-free!

Sources:

Borrelli, Christopher. “Typo personalities.” Chicago Tribune, 21 May 2008. Tempo Section.

www.jeffdeck.com/teal