Find the Error 56
(Extract adapted from a national newspaper advert
produced by an international company)
What kind of mistake do you see? (Choose one:)
- apostrophes
- articles
- doesn't make sense
- punctuation
- singular / plural
- spelling
Answer: apostrophes
This example is adapted from a large, colour advertisement which was printed
in several different national newspapers for several weeks. Clearly no one
involved with the advert minded that it used an incorrect punctuation mark
before the word 'Ello'. The word 'Ello' was printed in very large type, in italics,
which amplified the mistake by making it more noticeable. This word needs an
apostrophe before it to indicate that it has been shortened – from the full
greeting Hello to the more informal, or colloquial ’Ello. The author of this ad
has used a single speech mark: ‘ (which has a tail that points to the right),
instead of an apostrophe: ’ (which has a tail that points to the left). The
sentence should read: ’Ello Jeff, rather than ‘Ello Jeff. This mistake is similar
to the one in example number 37 in that it was probably caused by a wordprocessing
package working away on auto-pilot and not understanding that
the author wanted to put an apostrophe before 'Ello', rather than a single
speech mark. Alternatively, perhaps the well-paid advertising executives
working away busily on this campaign don't understand the difference between a
single speech mark and an apostrophe. Or maybe they just wanted the
company they were representing to look really unprofessional. We may never
know!
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