Suites have newly renovated bathrooms with granite counter tops and hairdryers.

The granite counter tops sound great, but those granite hairdryers are probably pretty heavy…

The problem here is that the adjective (granite) looks like it’s modifying both nouns (counter tops and hairdryers). The simplest way to solve this problem is to switch the sentence around:

Suites have newly renovated bathrooms with hairdryers and granite counter tops.

Are you scaring potential customers away by unwittingly threatening them with extra-heavy small appliances? A good editor can save you from embarrassing mistakes that cost you customers and leads.

I can almost forgive the wonky capitalization and inconsistent use of end punctuation. But a question with no question mark and a contraction with no apostrophe are really beyond reproach — never mind the missing hyphen.

This ad could have benefited from a once-over by a “natural born” editor. If you’re spending money on advertising, it only makes sense to invest in a quick proof-read to make sure you’re not embarrassed — or even driving potential customers away.

 MIA Dry Cleaning

I don’t know about you, but that’s not the place I’d choose to take my most expensive shirts…

Um, let him *leave* there? Surely enough, clicking through to the story reveals that, in fact, Trump will let McMahon *live* there (which is essentially the opposite of leaving).

For years I drove past this sign every day on the bus, and it has always driven me crazy. I understand what it is supposed to mean. Making wine at this location will save you money. But what on earth is that second line supposed to say when you read it to yourself in your head: Saving dollars? Saving moneys? Savings?

I just don’t know, and that apostrophe just makes it all the more painful. If they really felt they needed that $ symbol, the most logical way to phrase it would have been the simplest: Save $

What on earth does the person who wrote this ad think those quotation marks mean? Probably the same thing as the guy who wrote the sign I used to pass by at the skytrain station that read:

We prepare “fresh” food daily.

*sigh*

On this page, you can learn why the answer is probably no.

But surely if you expect me to have any interest in your “IQ Quiz,” you should at least know when to use “a” and when to use “an”… and that’s as far as I’m going to go in my linguistic analysis of this ad. Otherwise my brain might fall out.

So I offer my enthusiastic congratulations to the Local Government Association, a group that represents city councils in the UK, for their recent banning of 100 “non-words” that have recently cropped up in bureaucratic correspondence, but that baffle the general population — the very people these local councils are meant to serve.

Here’s an article from The Guardian that explains the move, and contains these insightful words from the association’s chairman:

Why do we have to have ‘coterminous, stakeholder engagement’ when we could just ‘talk to people’ instead?

Here’s a list of the top ten terms – with plain-English translations — from The Telegraph.  My favourite?

Predictors of Beaconicity: Signs that a council may win an award

Of course. Who wouldn’t have understood that?

Four commas, and not a one of them used correctly. If you’re going to invest in a sign, I highly recommend splurging on a proofreader!