I’ve discovered something interesting recently, through the process of taking a Spanish class: You never think about the mechanics of your native language. (Well, I think about the mechanics of my native language, but I could hardly be a very good editor — or soap-box grammarian — without doing so.)
Your brain knows how English works. [...]

Vancouver’s new smoking regulations have resulted in a flurry of horribly misspelled, badly punctuated, and otherwise disgusting new signs on patios all over Vancouver.
Is it really that difficult to spell-check? Must you really say that smoking is “prohibbitted”?
This recent flurry of terrible abuses of the English language made me want to do some walk-by editing [...]