Thursday, February 18, 2010

Pet Peeve-ilicious

Pet Peeve. Who decided that if something annoys you more than it should, it's called a "Pet Peeve"? Did someone have a pet dog named Peeve that they found very annoying, and they coined the term? I'm sure if I looked it up on Wikipedia I could find out for sure (because we all know Wikipedia is the place of all correct information).

Um, okay. I just looked it up.
It's first usage was around 1919. The term is a back-formation from the 14th-century word 'peevish,' meaning ornery or ill-tempered.
So there you have it. But I digress.

I have always been 'peeved' when businesses misspell words, use incorrect phrasing or punctuation, or butcher sentence structure. Drives me crazy! Come on, people! You're not writing in your journal, or an e-mail, or a blog post! You're a business!! Whether it's in a memo to the employees or in a sign on the door, just get it right! For the love, people: PROOFREAD!

How hard is it to hire someone who just happens to have a degree in English, or someone who has excellent writing skills? Isn't that important to you? Isn't it important for you to have a good image to anyone who might stumble upon your business? Everything your clients (or potential clients) read is a reflection upon the merit of your company!

Case in point:

Jared & I went to an undisclosed resaturant for a celebration recently. At this Italian restaurant, where they advertise endless-soup,-salad,-and-breadsticks (which company I refuse to name), we took our meals to go. When we came home, we found this printed on the bottom of the take-out container:


(In case the picture isn't working for you, it says "Microwavable Safe")

Are you kidding me? Did the executives of this restaurant graduate from High School? Do they know how to speak? Obviously, the big-wigs didn't print that on the bottom of the container, but I'll bet they okay'd it! Or, they delegated the intelligent task of writing two words to a recent 8th-grade graduate. HELLO!

The other thing that peeves me about this is, haven't they noticed their mistake? I assume that our 2 take-out containers were not the first two take-out containers to ever leave their establishment. Hasn't anyone noticed? If they haven't, they're retarted, and if they have noticed, they should have done something about it!

Now, I realize it's possible they already found the mistake and are in the process of fixing it. But, in the meanwhile, nit-picky people like me are going to look at that container and think less of them.

Not that it's going to keep me from going back to Olive Garden that restaurant.

(Oh- feel free to go threw my post and correcxt my mistakes. I didn't proffread it. But, then again, it's just a blogg.(

6 comments:

Adam and Shari Crawford said...

I'm TOTALLY with you on this one. Maybe it's the teacher coming out, but it drives me CRAZY! Especially when people use their, they're and there incorrectly or to and too. I saw a sign up in church the other day and they had used the wrong their. The ENTIRE time I couldn't stop looking at it and wondered how I could correct the sign ;)

Sarah said...

tee hee

I'm still eating at {that place} tho! Yum!

J, C, and E said...

Good to know I'm not the only one that wants to correct everyone's spelling and grammar. Too much teacher in me I guess.

mikensi said...

i bet it's the chinese people we buy our stuff from. they have horrible spelling/grammar. no offense to these people, lol. btw, olive garden isn't even that good. seriously. their breadsticks aren't even that good.

Kelly said...

I'm afraid I have the same impatience with bad spelling and grammar, especially on something that's published. Typos are everywhere! And they really stand out to me. I do kind of like pointing them out, though. :)

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